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Sudan Tribune

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Warrap MPs warn state could become lawless

November 14, 2013 (JUBA) – Members of the state legislative assembly from South Sudan’s border state of Warrap warned on Thursday that the area could turn into a lawlessness state if no immediate action was taken to address a simmering political conflict, which puts the legislature against the executive.

Warrap State in red. Contested Abyei region in pink.
Warrap State in red. Contested Abyei region in pink.
A legislator, who did not want to be identified, called on South Sudan’s president Salva Kiir to take “swift action” to correct the situation before it gets “out of control”.

The MP said that “trust, social cohesion, respect and love are being openly broken” everyday day that the “legitimacy of the legislative assembly have been undermined”.

Warrap’s governor, Nyandeng Malek Deliec, recently appointed a new cabinet without referring her selections to the assembly for vetting and approval in contravention of the state’s constitution.

If South Sudan’s government and institutions of justice “pay a deaf hear to what happened recently, especially the violation of the constitution by the state governor, then I am afraid this state risks turning into a lawlessness. I am saying this because anybody in position of power would now be tempted to do anything, since there will be no any institutions or authority to hold them responsible,” the legislator warned.

“The unity and peace for our people is bigger than anything else and I think it is time the president takes swift action to correct this situation before getting out of control. What is happening now is embarrassment to the president himself and can only be corrected if necessary action is taken”, he added.

James Machok Deng, a member of the state parliament told Sudan Tribune on Wednesday that the governor was making “inexcusable and irrelevant argument” to justify her constitutional violation.

“There is no provision in the constitution that allows the governor to swear in the cabinet without taking it to the parliament. There is no such provision at all in the current constitution of Warrap state”, said Deng.

All the arguments which the governor tries to frame now are just cover-ups, he added.

Deng was one of the two legislators who raised motions to be discussed on Monday 11 November, but dropped them and instead backed a resolution by MPs, which saw them write to governor Malek to explain why she by-passed the assembly.

Governor Malek, in a statement published by the citizen newspaper on Wednesday, attributed the conflict to the exclusion of some politicians in the cabinet and denied that she had violated the constitution.

She accused senior members of South Sudan’s ruling Sudan People’s Liberation (SPLM) – in Warrap, including deputy state chairperson Andrew Kuac Mayol and deputy chairperson Makuc Makuc, of spearheading the campaign against her after failing to be appointed.

Malek also claimed that some politicians in Warrap were trying to divide the state by creating confusion. Her critics, she alleged, were deliberately causing divisions within the SPLM with the intention of forming their own parties ahead of the next general elections in 2015.

(ST)

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