Ministerial portfolios for South Sudan’s proposed transitional government of national unity will be chosen by the signatories of the August peace agreement at a meeting of the Joint Monitoring and Evaluation Commission (JMEC) on 6 January 2016, JMEC announced.
According to the peace deal signed by South Sudan’s warring parties in August, the transitional government will have thirty ministries split up between the government of Salva Kiir, the SPLM-In Opposition of Riek Machar, the Former Detaniees led by Pagan Amum, and other political parties.
Kiir’s side will take sixteen ministries, while Machar’s group will take ten. The FDs and other political parties will get two ministries each.
Each group will choose their ministries in a rotational ‘draft’ on 6 January. The government gets the first pick, followed by the SPLM-IO, the FDs, and other political parties in that order, repeated until each group fills its quota.
In a statement, former Botswana President Festus Mogae, who is the chairperson of JMEC the body tasked with overseeing and monitoring the peace agreement, expressed his appreciation to the parties for their cooperation toward establishing the transitional government.
The full establishment of the transitional government is scheduled for 22 January.