The leader of the Communist Party of South Sudan on Monday evening said political leaders have been prevented from participating in the Kenya Government mediated Nairobi Peace Talks between opposition groups and the Government of South Sudan.
Speaking exclusively to Radio Tamazuj, Joseph Wol Modesto, the Secretary General of the Communist Party, said the talks, dubbed the Tumaini (hope) Initiative, seem to be dragging the country back to the chain of events that saw political players jostling for power in 2013.
“It seems to us that the Nairobi Talks are taking us back to 2013 where the people who are the holdout parties want to come back and try to elbow to take away those who are in power,” he said. “They talk about a party of technocrats but what is in their mind is not purely a government of the technocrats because they think that there will be also a prime minister from among the politicians. They are even talking that some people will not be able to contest elections and we think this is not correct.”
The veteran politician said the holdout groups are demanding that President Salva Kiir and his deputy, Dr. Riek Machar, should not contest in the elections yet it is their constitutional right.
According to Wol, his party wants the proposed government of technocrats to be made up of civil servants and people from academia to transition the government towards peaceful and transparent elections.
“When we say that there should be a government of technocrats, we mean that the people who are in the government currently should not be there again because the government of technocrats will be given the mandate to form a government and also to let people go for elections,” he stated. “In this case, it means that every person, including the president who is our symbol of this country, will also be entitled to go for elections because he has the right under the constitution as a citizen to be voted for or to vote for people so there is no agreement to that at the Nairobi Talks.”
Wol asked: “If you are sure that you are making a government of technocrats which will be very fair, then why do you fear that these people (Kiir and Machar) should not go for elections?”
He said that in the event there are going to be free, fair, transparent, and credible elections conducted by the government made of technocrats, then every person should be allowed to run for office because “there will be no fear of corruption, violation or forgery.”