A veteran politician, Prof. Peter Adwok Nyaba, said the ruling SPLM party does not practice democracy, while lashing out at the peace partners for failing to implement the 2018 peace agreement.
“The SPLM was not a political party; it is a military organization, and in a military organization, there is no democracy. Let’s be frank and clear,” Prof. Adwok said on Wednesday while addressing a three-day civic and political dialogue to chart a way forward regarding the upcoming elections.
Prof. Adwok, a former national minister, said the problem facing South Sudan is that “somebody wants to be in power until he dies.”
The outspoken veteran politician was referring to the country’s top leadership.
“If you want to take power from him, he will cause war. So, the dialogue will be okay so that we can leave him there. But let him develop the country, or allow the formation of a government that can work and develop the country,” Prof. Adwok stressed.
The South Sudanese intellectual emphasized the need for inter-party dialogue to agree on the way forward regarding the upcoming elections, underscoring the need to focus on why the parties failed to implement the peace agreement.
“People talk about elections in December 2024, which is okay, but as a ruling party, you have not met the conditions for holding these elections,” he said.
Prof. Adwok called for the repatriation of refugees in neighbouring countries to South Sudan to participate in the national elections, saying the peace agreement says the refugees should be transported back home. “Also, we have people in POCs [Protection of Civilians’ Sites]. These are citizens, and when there are elections, they should be there,” he said.
IGAD mediation
The South Sudanese politician lashed out at the regional bloc IGAD for its power-sharing formula during the peace talks and said: “This thing called revitalized peace agreement is just a sham. It did not address the problem of war and why people fought in 2013 and 2016 because IGAD insists on power-sharing.”
“We know where the problem is, but people done don’t want to say it. This is the problem of civil society because we call ourselves civil society. Many of us are NGOs; they are not real civil society because political culture in South Sudan is still very shallow,” he added.
“So what is at stake now is that we have a peace agreement, and the parties to the agreement don’t want to implement it because those who have the power want to keep the power. They don’t want to give it to anyone else,” he concluded.