President Salva Kiir has finally picked Gen. Hussein Abdelbagi Akol as his fifth deputy on the opposition alliance ticket, ending days of speculation.
The post was left vacant by Kiir on Friday after members of the South Sudan Opposition Alliance (SSOA), an umbrella grouping of eight opposition parties, failed to select one candidate for the vice president position.
Members of the opposition alliance had nominated six leaders from their various political organizations for the post and authorized President Kiir to pick one of the candidates.
The move was rejected by National Democratic Movement (NDM), a member of the opposition coalition. It said that the choice of a position belonging to the opposition alliance cannot be made by another party to the peace deal.
Khalid Butrous, a member of the opposition coalition and head of the National Salvation Front faction, told Radio Tamazuj this afternoon that the president has appointed Gen. Hussein Abdelbagi as his fifth deputy as part of the peace deal.
“We met today in the presence of President Salva Kiir and Sudan’s leader Gen. Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan. We agreed at the meeting to authorize the president to pick one of candidates on the list,” he said.
The opposition official said they welcome the appointment of Gen. Hussein Abdelbagi as the fifth vice president of the transitional government of national unity.
“The president has already issued a decree appointing Gen. Hussein Abdelbagi as the vice president. Hussein has already been sworn-in as vice president at the presidential palace,” he explained.
Gen. Hussein abdelbagi hails from Northern Bahr el Ghazal State.
Khalid revealed that the opposition alliance will submit the final list of its ministerial nominees on Monday for their appointment into the cabinet. “We are planning to meet so that we agree on the nominees,” he concluded.
President Kiir on Friday dissolved the previous government and appointed opposition leader Riek Machar as first vice president, after the two men finally agreed to form a long-delayed unity government.
James Wani Igga, Taban Deng Gai, and Rebecca Nyandeng De Mabior were also named vice-presidents as part of the unity government.