President Salva Kiir during the launch of consultation on establishment of Commission for Truth, Recompilation and Healing in Juba in 2022 | Credit | Courtesy
The communist party of South Sudan has proposed a 5-year civilian-led
government headed by the prime minister and Salva Kiir as ceremonial president
as an alternative for extension to prepare the country for free, fair, and credible
general election.
Joseph Wol Modesto, Secretary General of the communist party
said the expected inter-party dialogue on the way forward should seek consensus
on forming the civilian government. He said the parties’ dialogue should be for
a period of six month.
“In that six-month period, we should have reached a
consensus of formation of a lean government of technocrats, from the academia
and the civil service,” Wol told The Radio Community in an interview on Tuesday.
“These people who will form this government should not have
taken position under the revitalized agreement. They should not even be members
of parliament. They should be new people from academia, civil service.”
“They will have executive prime minister and they will also
form the governments of the states and the three administrative areas.”
“President, Salva Kiir Mayardit is our symbol. We want him
to remain in his position, because he is a symbol of this country, with
sovereign authorities like meeting the ambassadors, but not the executive
powers. He will remain a ceremonial president,” Wol stated.
According to Wol, the civilian-led government will rule for five
years to create conducive environment and prepare the country for a democratic,
free, fair, and credible election.
“The damage, we have caused to South Sudan needs a long time
to fix it and come to a minimum level of some semblance of a government and a
country So, we give them five years. We let them have these five years to work
into this,” he said.
“No political party will be in this government. No party
representation. It will be from academia and the civil service.”
“As for the political parties, they should go back to their
constituencies and begin to build their parties by getting their members.”
Modesto also underscores the need to implement the prerequisites
for elections as outlined in the 2018 revitalized peace agreement.
“You cannot go to an election without the constitution. The
demarcation of the constituencies is not there. The census is not there,” he
explained.
South Sudan is scheduled to hold its first-ever election on
December 22, this year but slow progress of the peace deal kept government and
the opposition in different position on the point election.
The SPLM in government has continued to express
determination for election while the main armed SPLM in opposition has also
maintain its stand that all the election conditions must first be met before
the country could go to polls.
SPLM-IO proposes two years extension to allow implementation
of the remaining tasks of the peace agreement but the SPLM-IG rallies for
election this year.
The international community, regional bodies and civil
society have called on parties to have a dialogue to break the deadlock on how
to end the transitional period.
“We support dialogue. It is very important at this stage
that people should actually sit down and dialogue. It should be in the form of
a workshop and should take a period of about six months discussing issues
related to our problems in South Sudan,” said Wol.
“We want it to be under the UNMISS and AU, we also give them
the responsibility of resourcing it.”
The prerequisite for election includes the permanent
constitution, security arrangement, population census, among others in the
peace deal.
