The spokesperson of the Other Political Parties (OPP), Albino Akol Atak, told Radio Tamazuj in an exclusive interview Monday that his political grouping has been assured that their nominee for the position of the Third Deputy Speaker of the Revitalized Transitional National Legislative Assembly (RTNLA), Kornelio Kon Ngu, will be appointed and announced soon. He added that his outfit should not be blamed for the delays in the implementation of the peace agreement as they are a minority in the political decision-making process.
Below are edited excerpts:
Q: What has delayed the appointment of your (OPP) nominee for the position of the Third Deputy Speaker of the Revitalized Transitional National Assembly (RTNLA)?
A: The situation has not changed but there is a preliminary approval by President Salva Kiir and the appointment will be confirmed soon because only the announcement remains according to information we received from National Assembly Speaker Jemma Nunu Kumba. Every business now passes through parliament, the office of the speaker, and we expect that our candidate for the position of the third deputy speaker in parliament will be announced in the coming sessions, God willing.
Q: Who did you nominate for the position as a political coalition?
A: We are referred to as the Other Political Parties (OPP) in the peace agreement and we nominated Kornelio Kon Ngu for the position of Third Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly based on the percentages allocated to the parties. The other signatories to the peace agreement accepted Kon’s candidacy and he was selected. This was done before the constitution of the parliament in May last year, but he has not been appointed till now.
There has been a delay in the president’s approval of our nominee and yet we presented our candidate to the president through the chairperson of the National Transitional Committee (NTC) and security adviser to President Kiir, Tut Kew Gatluak. In turn, the president is supposed to ratify it and refer the appointment order to the speaker of parliament, who in turn announces the appointment.
We have been asking about the reasons for the delay in announcing our choice but we have now passed this stage and we are only waiting for our candidate to be appointed. The national assembly has been busy with approving the 2021/22 budget which was approved last week and it is now ready to hold its regular sessions according to the house’s agenda. There will be three sessions per week, and we expect that the appointment of our candidate will be announced during the upcoming sessions.
Q: You say Speaker Kumba has assured your group that Kon will be appointed. Are you sure?
A: In principle, the appointment of our candidate was approved and there is evidence of an intention to implement what we agreed on as concerned parties. It now remains only to issue a written order from President Kiir to the speaker of parliament. We have appealed to the high committee for the implementation of the peace agreement to speed up. The order of the president will arrive at any time and it remains only a matter of time to announce the appointment of our candidate.
Q: Is it Speaker Kumba who informed you about the preliminary approval of your candidate by President Kiir?
A: No, it is not. We did not receive written notification from the president, but the notification goes from the presidency to the speaker of parliament based on the nominations we submitted. The president in turn approves our decision as political parties and directs the speaker of parliament and we are now waiting to hear the announcement from parliament and not from the president.
Q: Why are OPP parliamentarians not being appointed in the states?
A: Our representatives have not been appointed to the state legislatures due to our differences as political parties and internal disagreement in the sharing of percentages. As you know, the peace agreement set the percentage of party participation in the states at 8 percent.
Each state parliament consists of 100 members, including 8 members representing the 8 percent allocated to OPP, but we differed in distributing these percentages among ourselves. We suggested that each of the two groups should have two members in each state and one member for four separate parties in each state. This division was fair but the umbrella parties rejected it and we did not reach a consensus on this proposal. The other parties to the peace agreement submitted the names of their representatives and they were waiting for us, but when we failed to present our representatives, we gave them the green light to announce the appointment of their representatives. We saw that a delay in the formation of the structures of the transitional government, because of our differences as political parties, at a time when states need to complete the structures of the transitional government, was not good. So, this led to the announcement of 92 members in each state without the 8 members of OOP in the states.
We are in the process of concluding consultations regarding the appointment of our representatives in the states and this is expected to take place next week.
Q: Your political grouping has been partly blamed for the delay in the implementation of the peace agreement. What is your take on this?
A: I do not agree with those who blame the OPP for being part of the parties that contributed to delaying the implementation of the peace agreement. As OPP, we are considered a minority in political decision-making because our absence does not affect the failure or success of the implementation of the peace agreement.
As OPP, we have no influence in the non-implementation of the agreement and there is no reason to delay the implementation of Chapter Two which deals with security arrangements which is one of the most important clauses in implementing the peace agreement. Secondly, OPP is not responsible for the delay of the permanent constitution because our representation is very little. Therefore, I do not agree that we are one of the parties delaying the peace implementation but I can accept that we can be criticized for our differences and why we do not agree as parties. This criticism is not for all political parties, but there is only one person who does not understand that he is dealing in the shadow of the group.
[Ed: Sections of the OPP have in the past severally blamed their member, humanitarian affairs minister, Peter Mayen Majongdit, for running a solo show and working against the political grouping.]
This made us raise questions; if a person like this could not deal with the group he is in, how would you deal with him within his party? The party is a collective action and what we are doing is a collective action, and if you fail in the collective action, you will automatically fail within your own party. All this is due to the absence of a sense of responsibility. And we accepted the formation of the structures of the transitional government in the states without our presence as evidence of our keenness to implement the peace agreement because we have the spirit to encourage the implementation of the agreement as soon as possible to benefit the people of southern Sudan.