JUBA - 26 Dec 2015

Dinka council of elders welcomes appointment of 28 state governors

The Jieng (Dinka) Council of Elders has congratulated South Sudanese President Salva Kiir on appointing governors to 28 states.

The group's head has previously said that they presented a 24-state map to Kiir who then added four more states.

“The council welcomes and congratulates President Salva Kiir Mayardit for acting on the decision of the legislature and for responding to the demand of the people," said council member Aldo Ajou Deng Akuey. "We call on our people to stand with their president and his government in the implementation of the peace agreement and in the establishment of the institutions which have now been established by the republican order."

The JCE is a self-appointed group of influential Dinka politicians and close relatives and allies of Kiir who act as an informal advisors to the president. It is not a group of traditional leaders.

Ajou, who is also a member of the parliamentary committee on human rights and legal affairs at the council of states, said anybody who rejects Kiir's order is interfering in the internal affairs of an independent state.

“This is a sovereign decision and anybody is not expected to interfere with it whatsoever the argument might be," he said. "The council therefore welcomes the appointment of the new governors and calls for support of the establishment of the new institutions. The council also calls on the people to take it as a positive development. People needs to embrace it, own it and implement it urgently."

He downplayed views which have been expressed in recent months by members of armed and unarmed opposition groups that the creation of new 28 states undermines peace in South Sudan.

The peace agreement signed in August by Kiir and rebel leader Riek Machar calls for power-sharing in ten states, not 28, with the rebels given leadership in two of those ten states.