The political parties in South Sudan that do not belong to the SPLM, including the National Alliance opposition parties as well as the National Agenda parties aligned with the government, have divided up the 17 parliamentary seats for the country’s proposed transitional parliament allotted to them by the signed peace deal, an opposition leader said.
Lam Akol, chairman of the opposition Democratic Change (DC) party and overall leader of National Alliance parties, told Radio Tamazuj that they reached a solution with the National Agenda group allied to President Salva Kiir’s SPLM faction.
He pointed out that his group will take 12 seats, while the national agenda group led by Cabinet Minister Martin Elia will take 5 seats in the parliament.
“It was agreed that there are 12 political parties which attended the symposium in Addis Ababa in 2014, and at the same time signed the agreement. The remaining five seats will be given to the political parties which participated in the symposium but did not sign the agreement,” said Akol.
Lam Akol, who is also minister of agricultural and food security in the new coalition government, said they have already submitted names of their MP nominees to the Joint Monitoring and Evaluation Commission (JMEC).
File photo: Lam Akol