A South Sudanese opposition leader has criticized the recent position paper of prominent rebel leader Riek Machar, saying the proposal was embarrassing.
Machar, according to his position paper, demanded for a transitional unity government for 27 months. He also said power ratio in the upcoming unity government should be 42%, 42% and 16% for the government, SPLM-IO and opposition parties respectively.
Machar proposed that the country’s president will be selected by SPLM party led by Salva Kiir; the first vice president will be selected by his rebel group, while the vice president will be selected by other opposition parties.
“You cannot come up with a proposal before people sit at the negotiating table. Machar was supposed to give the proposal to his delegation to the peace talks for negotiations. So it is a very strange thing,” Lam Akol said in an interview with Radio Tamazuj.
The South Sudanese politician, who is now the leader of South Sudan’s opposition National Democratic Movement (NDM), declined to reveal his proposal before the second phase of revitalization process kicks off in Addis Ababa on 5 February.
Akol, who has been a leading critic of President Salva Kiir, accused the government of attacking rebel positions in violation of the signed cessation of hostilities agreement.
These violations, according to the rebel leader, could jeopardize the peace process in the country, while urging the ceasefire monitoring body to verify repeated ceasefire violations.
Akol formed his rebel movement in September 2016 after resigning from the unity government in Juba.