The leading opposition outfit Sudan People’s Liberation Movement in Opposition (SPLM-IO) has expressed concern over President Salva Kiir’s reconstitution of the National Elections Commission.

On Friday night Kiir reconstituted the National Constitutional Review Commission (NCRC), National Elections Commission (NEC), and the Political Parties Council (PPC) and appointed officials to lead the three institutions. 

In a decree read on the state-owned television South Sudan Broadcasting Corporation, Kiir reconstituted the NEC and reappointed the incumbent chairperson, SPLM’s Prof. Abednego Akok Kacuol. He also appointed South Sudan Opposition Alliance’s (SSOA) Michael Yabagayo as NEC deputy chairperson and Mac Maika Deng, a civil servant, was retained as the Chief Electoral Officer.

However, Puok Both Baluang, the Acting Press Secretary in the Office of the First Vice President and SPLM-IO leader Dr. Riek Machar, on Monday told Radio Tamazuj that the SPLM-IO was supposed to nominate NEC’s Chief Electoral Officer.

“As far as the reconstituted NEC is concerned, we (SPLM-IO) had the position of Chief Electoral Officer. The position was supposed to belong to SPLM-IO but there was a change,” he said. “We were supposed to have three members on the NEC but only two were appointed. The president said that the position of Chief Electoral Officer is to be occupied by a civil servant but for us, and according to the allocation of positions, the position was given to SPLM-IO.”

“We are aware that reappointed Chief Electoral Officer Mac Maika Deng is a member of the SPLM Party, however, for the other bodies, the National Constitutional Review Commission (NCRC), and Political Parties Council (PPC), the fronted SPLM-IO nominees were appointed,” Both added. 

Asked if the SPLM-IO will not forfeit the Chief Electoral Officer position like it did the defense ministry which was unilaterally swapped with the interior ministry by President Kiir, Both said they were waiting for the president to return from an official visit from Egypt.

The reconstituted NEC is supposed to superintend over the first-ever general elections at the end of the transitional period in December 2024 as per the 2018 peace agreement which ended a bloody conflict that killed an estimated 400,000 people according to the UN.