Members of the South Sudan national legislative assembly have elected nine representatives to the East African Legislative Assembly (EALA).

The elections held last Friday attracted 25 candidates for the nine seats allocated to South Sudan at the EALA. All member states of the East African community get to elect nine representatives to the regional parliament. 

Sudan's People Liberation Movement (SPLM) party under President Salva Kiir presented five nominees, while SPLM-IO under First Vice President Riek Machar nominated two candidates, South Sudan Opposition Alliance (SSOA) had one candidate, Other Political Parties (OPP) had two candidates, USAP party had one while the independent candidates were 15.

During the declaration of the results Friday evening, political parties such as SSOA, OPP, and USAP lost the elections while all the candidates nominated by the SPLM and SPLM-IO parties were elected. Two other independent candidates also made it to the regional parliament. 

The SPLM candidates; Dr. Ann Itto, Gai Deng Nhial, Gabriel Garang, Dr. Yuda Jeremiah, and Kim Gai Ruot garnered 332, 333,294, 326, and 296 votes respectively. 

Luke Thomason and Sadia James of the SPLM-IO got 296 and 300 votes respectively. 

Meanwhile, the independent candidates Gideon Gatpan had 209 votes and Mukulia Kennedy had 294 votes. 

Mr. Edmund Yakani, the Executive Director for Community Empowerment for Progress Organization (CEPO) hailed the elections as free and fair.

"CEPO welcomes the practice of fair and free elections of EALA as an accredited domestic observer," Yakani said in a statement. "The values include freedom of expression, free media coverage, unrestricted domestic observation, peaceful and freedom campaign in the parliament, transparent votes counting, no harassment and intimidation. Congratulations to the leadership of the National Transitional Legislative Assembly for the organization of democratic elections of our representatives to the East African Legislative Assembly."

Yakani also congratulated the assembly for voting in women in the regional parliament saying they constitute 44 percent of those elected.

The activist also says CEPO will organize public debates for the elected representatives to EALA to explain their role to the public. 

According to the electoral committee that chaired South Sudan's elections to the EALA, there were 550 registered voters, but only 444 cast their votes in Friday's election.

Counting and verification of the votes in the four ballot boxes started Friday evening and the results were declared late in the night.