Kiir calls on governors and speakers to work for unity of the leadership
July 15, 2013 (JUBA) – South Sudan’s president, Salva Kiir has called on state governors and speakers of the 10 legislative state assemblies to work for the unity of the country’s leadership.
“Work for what unites us all,” the president told the gathering of senior officials mainly from the South’s ruling party – the SPLM.
The speakers’ forum was created to build the relationship between the executive and the legislature and brought together the governors and their ministers of parliamentary affairs as well as the speakers of the state parliaments.
In the recent past, there have been conflicts and lack of cooperation between the national legislature and the respective states’ legislative assemblies on one hand and the executive and the legislature on the other.
The acting speaker of the council of states, Remy Oler, did not mince his words when he vividly described the deplorable situation of disrespect to the legislative assemblies, expressing the need to avoid authoritarianism in the country.
An example, Oler said, was what he described as the “sour” relationship between the legislative assembly in Northern Bahr el Ghazal state and its executive under the governorship of Paul Malong Awan, after the latter fired six elected MPs and resisted parliament’s directives to have them reinstated.
Kiir, who looked tired and exhausted before delivering his speech, also reiterated his commitment to fight corruption in the country and urged all the organs of the government to battle it.
“We cannot achieve any development if we encourage the corrupt use of public funds. We must fight it so that these financial resources are used to support development projects”, he said.
The anti-corruption fight, he added, will not only be limited to the national government and certain institutions, but will further involve the three branches of the government, including the executive, the legislature and the judiciary
“I will not relent on this fight because this is about the public resources”, the president added.
The South Sudanese leader further reminded the gathering that he personally took part in the decades of war against the Khartoum government not for the benefit of his comrades, but so as to bring change to the south, which seceded from the north two years ago.
President Kiir, his deputy Riek Machar and the speaker of the national legislative assembly, James Wani Igga, appeared harmoniously before the parliamentarians, governors and diplomatic corpses, as they walked into the parliament hall and sat together at the high table in acknowledgement of one another for the first time since the rise of political temperatures for the last two weeks over insisting signs of future leadership contests.
Kiir, during his speech did acknowledge the presence of Machar, unlike during the 9 July independence celebration, when he failed to do so, causing public concerns and rumours of emerging cracks in the top echelons.
Before the president’s speech, however, participants in the hall had to endure a “nuisance” created by an “unknown” church priest who started the program by a supposedly prayer, turned statement, which was described by a lawmaker as a “one-sided politically motivated prayer.”
The priest, in a statement, before delivering the prayer warned against anyone who would politically challenge the current leadership under Kiir, saying such a challenge “is cursed.”
His statement was interpreted to be in direct reference to the recent declaration by the vice-president to contest for the ruling party’s chairmanship in the upcoming national convention as well as in the 2015 presidential elections.
The statement left some MPs murmuring among themselves and inquiring who that new young priest was and whether he was really mandated by God to anoint the incumbent as a permanent president and discourage democratic leadership competitions in South Sudan.
The situation also reminded the members of the parliament about the strange coincidence of the unusual absence of senior priests in Juba who always graced important gatherings of such kind.
“Where are the senior bishops and pastors who always blessed our gatherings? And who is this young political priest I have never seen and heard of before? Was he selectively recruited and brought purposely to pray in the way he did?” whispered an MP seated near a Sudan Tribune journalist.
This time, also, no Muslim clerk was invited to make citations from the Quran, contrary to previous events where representatives of the two religious groups were given the chance for opening prayers.
The speakers’ forum will continue for the next two days under the chairmanship of the national speaker of parliament, James Wani Igga, and expected to come up with resolutions and recommendations on how to resolve conflicts between legislative assemblies or with the executive.
SOUTH SUDAN NOT A FAILED STATE
James Wani Igga, on his part, assured the gathering that the legislature would collaborate and work together with the other arms of the government to promote democracy and good governance in order to build viable institutions in the country and restore trust in the government.
The parliament’s speaker, who is a deputy chair of the SPLM, denied that the house was “a rubber stamp” of the executive. He also dismissed reports that South Sudan was a failed state, saying the latter inherited numerous challenges when it attained independence two years ago.
“We are not [a] failed state comrades. How can we be a failed state and we just became an independent country. We are just two years from independence. How do you expect a two-year-old child to do what [an] adult does? [Do you] Expect a child to start walking and run simultaneously? Igga asked, amid applause from audience.
“No. It is not possible, unless you want us to perform miracles”, he added.
Last month, the US-based Fund For Peace ranked South Sudan as the world’s fourth most failed state. The young nation’s first complete year on the Failed States Index (FSI) shows it sinking into the same cycles of instability of many of its neighbours.
Sudan, from which the South separated in 2011 is ranked third, with the top five places comprising countries from East and Central Africa.
DEMOCRACY SHOULD NOT BE IMPORTED
Meanwhile, the former Botswana president said his country cherishes the rule of democracy, but added that it is a process that takes time to be understood and embraced.
“Democracy should not be imported, it must be a homegrown system, but it must come slowly, step by step. There should be no rush for it. It should move at safer and steady steps”, noted Festus Gontebany Mogae.
(ST)