South Sudan’s ruling SPLM begins registering new members
May 9, 2016 (MAYOM) – Authorities in South Sudan’s Mayom county of the newly created Northern Liech state said they have on Monday begun registering members of the ruling party, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM). They described the move as peaceful and voluntary response from citizens.
He claimed that many citizens in the area have petitioned the SPLM state secretary at the state level to resume registration, adding that their request became successful after the ruling party approved membership registration with effect from Monday.
Mayak claimed that SPLM was doing registration to know how many people still supported the SPLM party, adding most of the people have fled their homes during the two years of conflict and it was good to register them upon return.
“We are registering the people based on their interest on joining SPLM freely. This is not an intimidation but it is voluntary and individual willing to be part of SPLM,” he said.
He advised that other political parties in the country including the SPLM-IO are free to do the same on registering their members in the county.
“You know South Sudan is multi-party system, we encourage other political parties to register their supporters and the county authorities will use maximum cooperation on giving them green light of movement,” he added.
However, it is not yet clear what maybe behind the decision by officials in the area, although commissioner Mayak said the reason was statistical data entry for new membership of the SPLM cadres.
It is believed files that hold membership names of SPLM cadres in Unity state have been lost during the two years of conflicts.
But officials who remained in support of President Salva Kiir’s government during the war have admitted only few members are with them and majority have left the party and joined Riek Machar’s SPLM-IO’s faction.
(ST)