Manasseh Magok Rundial, speaker of National Legislative Assembly in South Sudan explained on Thursday how the leadership of the governing faction of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) under President Salva Kiir has decided to go about selecting his successor from among members of parliament from the Equatoria region.
South Sudan’s 2015 peace deal states that the parliament speaker must be an Equatorian, though it did not specify the party to which he or she must belong.
“The selection was by consensus as a way of balancing power in the region itself, which is how political seats are allocated. You know that the vice president comes from Central Equatoria, the government chief whip comes from Eastern Equatoria and so the leadership decided the position of the speaker should go to Western Equatoria by a way of balancing power within Equatoria,” Rundial explained.
The top legislator commended the manner in which members of the SPLM faction loyal to president Kiir in parliament from Greater Equatoria handled the nomination of the candidates sent to the leadership of the SPLM for final selection and endorsement.
He continued: “I would like to commend my comrades from the members of parliament in Equatoria. They exhibited rare leadership when they met and agreed to nominate four candidates from among several candidates who indicated interest to vie for the position of the speaker. They agreed in their lasting meeting to send the name of Betty Achan, David Nailo Mayo, Luka Manoja and Anthony Lino Makana to the leadership to decide and select one candidate.”
“This was before the new situation. When the names of these comrades reached the SPLM leadership, the President of the Republic in his capacity as the chairman of the SPLM, decided to solicit the opinion and interpretation of the IGAD on the mechanism of selecting the speaker and from which party,” he claimed.
Manasseh added, “The response the IGAD gave the president through JMEC (Joint Monitoring and Evaluation Commission) was that the speaker should be a nominee of the SPLM (SPLM in government). The result of the decision of IGAD confirming the right of the government to select the speaker from among members of parliament from Equatoria was conveyed to the president by JMEC chairman on Monday 25 July 2016.”
“The chairman therefore decided to convene the meeting of the leadership yesterday (Wednesday) and the leadership scrutinized the resumes of each member and took into consideration power balance and Anthony Lino Makana was selected.”