Power sharing negotiations between South Sudan’s warring parties at the ongoing peace talks in Addis Ababa have stalled over power sharing ratios in government.
Emmanuel Aban, spokesman of the opposition groups at the peace talks, told Radio Tamazuj this afternoon that the two sides were deadlocked.” The mediators proposed that the government should be given 51% and the opposition should take 49%. The opposition wants power sharing ratios to be 50% for the government and 50% for the opposition at the national and state levels,” Aban said.
He pointed out that the government rejected a proposal that the current cabinet and national parliament should be dissolved.
The opposition official accused the government of blocking progress on security reforms by refusing to agree to two separate armies. “The government says opposition forces should be absorbed into the army only, while the opposition says there is a need for representation of the three regions in the military, so this is the point of disagreement,” he said.
Aban pointed out that they devoted a day to resolving the impasse but there was no solution.” We said during the negotiations that we want to identify the root causes of the conflict first before we talk about power sharing ratios,” he said.
Kornelio Kon Ngu, who heads South Sudan’s national alliance of political parties, said the proposal developed by the East African regional bloc is unacceptable. He pointed out that warring parties disagreed over the issue of cabinet and national parliament.
“The government rejects a proposal presented by the opposition that the government should be dissolved. The government said it can absorb the opposition and create new ministries for them and rejected a proposal for dissolution of the incumbent government,” Kon said.
The party official, who is part of the incumbent government in Juba, pointed out that the government says it won't accept the establishment of a cantonment site for members of the armed opposition group. “The government said those people will not be cantoned. The government said the opposition forces should be absorbed into the army only but the opposition rejects that point,” he said.
Kon pointed out that they will continue with deliberations on the key issues on governance Friday.
For his part, South Sudan’s Minister of Information Michael Makuei Lueth said discussions on the power sharing proposal developed by the East African regional bloc will continue tomorrow. ‘In case we don’t finish then it will be up to the mediators to decide as what to do,” he said.