The secretary general of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), Peter Lam Both, has said that the party has so far registered 4.9 million members across the country.
The revelation was made on Tuesday in the Western Bahr el Ghazal State capital, Wau, during a rally attended by an estimated 20,000 party supporters who were addressed by President Salva Kiir who is also the SPLM party chairman.
According to Lam, the party registered the members in the last two years after the reorganization of the SPLM under his stewardship and mobilization at the state and grassroots levels.
“There is no winning without organization and this is why last year we come here and also visited all the ten states and three administrative areas so that the organization of the party is done. I am very happy because the huge attendance today demonstrates the SPLM struggle and this is the meaning of the organization,” he said. “Comrades, the elections are now coming and it is you who nominated comrade Salva (Kiir). The same courage should continue to the elections and voting so do not just say I attended the rally and go home. No! The work has just started today.”
“You have to go and carry out your duty to bring many people to become members of SPLM because as of today, we (SPLM) have 4.9 million members in South Sudan,” Lam added.
The SPLM party honcho urged the outfit’s members to refrain from tribalism and said the desire for money should not be put above the party.
“You have congregated here because you have a relationship with the SPLM and everyone here has lost beloved ones for this Country,” Lam concluded.
Ed: Do the SPLM party membership figures add up?
The figures of SPLM Secretary General Peter Lam Both are however questionable seeing that a large number of the population are refugees in neighboring countries and others are internally displaced.
According to UNHCR figures, there are 875,849 South Sudanese refugees in Uganda, 808, 336 in Sudan, 416,308 in Ethiopia, I61,822 in Kenya, and 56,877 in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
The European Commission’s European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations says there are 2.3 million South Sudanese refugees in neighboring countries. More than 2 million are internally displaced.
In April, the South Sudan National Bureau of Statistics (SSNBS) released a Population Estimation Survey (PES) which assessed the country’s population at 12.4 million.
According to the SSNBS population estimates, 52.9 percent of the population are females and 47.1 percent males while the population of youth stands at 77 percent.
This implies that a large section of the population is made up of juveniles who cannot be registered as members of political parties.
Also, a large section of the population blames the SPLM party and its many surrogates for the wars and other attendant problems and challenges the country is facing are most likely not to identify with the party.
The Country’s last population and Housing Census was conducted before the independence of South Sudan and put the region’s population at 8.26 million.