South Sudan and DICTTATORSHIP HAD BEEN BORN!

Form your own party, Kiir tells SPLM contenders

July 29, 2013 (JUBA)- South Sudan president, Salva Kiir has openly told those opposed to his leadership to the South-ruling Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) to form their own political entities, if the party no longer fulfils their aspirations.

Kiir, who also doubles as the current chair of the party, stressed that doors remain open for those intending to exit the party with plans to challenge its top leadership.

“[The SPLM was abandoned in 1991[and] 1992. Whoever does not want to be under the leadership of somebody, can go and establish his or her own political party,” he said Monday.

The president, making his first public statement since he dissolved cabinet last week, was speaking at an occasion organised by former child soldiers, popularly known as red army.

In a series of republican orders issued on 23 July, Kiir removed his long-time deputy, Riek Machar, dissolving the entire government in a move that surprised many.

He said it was too early for any election campaigns to take off, given that the country’s citizens will not vote, till 2015.

"This is not the time for campaign. For those who are in a hurry, I will say, if they don’t want to wait for the right time, they better leave [the] SPLM and then go and form their own political party", he said.

Analysts interpret the president’s remarks as an indirect response to the recent declaration by Machar to challenge him for the position of the party chairmanship.

At a press conference he held on Thursday, the former vice-president reiterated his desire to run for the chairmanship ruling party, before the two-year old country holds its first national election due in 2015.

"I have told my colleagues in the politburo [political bureau] that come the next elections in 2015, I would contest those elections", he told reporters in the capital, Juba.

He further stressed that ascending to power should be done through peaceful and democratic processes, and that is why he called on the army to remain neutral in such political processes.

Machar said he is attached to the unity of the party and denied that he had any intention to form a new party as it was the case in 1991 when they had disagreed with the former SPLM, the late John Garang.

International observers fear that a power struggle would take place within the party pointing out that Machar who is a SPLM deputy chairman and the party’s leader Salva Kiir would forge internal factions within the party.

(ST)