South Sudan President Salva Kiir has exposed flaws in the procedures followed in the dissolution of the SPLM-IO faction controlled by the country’s first vice president.
In March, Gen. Taban Deng Gai dissolved the opposition Sudan People's Liberation Movement – In-Opposition (SPLM-IO) and joined the ranks of the SPLM party.
Gai said all SPLM-IO cadres would be integrated into the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) in line with the agreement on the reunification of the various factions of founding SPLM party.
Kiir, who is also the leader of the ruling Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), raised questions on the procedures followed when the SPLM-IO faction led by his first deputy decided to join his SPLM party, saying Gai and his colleagues failed to follow normal procedures when they dissolved their faction.
“I told Ezekiel Lol that you did not do your homework in your house when General Taban declared the dissolution of his SPLM-IO faction,” Kiir said at the closing session of the SPLM retreat in Lobonok County on Thursday.
He added, “We were expecting that you would sit alone in your Political Bureau to approve the dissolution of your party and then declare joining the SPLM.”
Kiir noted that the SPLM-IO leaders in Juba were supposed to write a formal request to join his SPLM party. “If there is a request, I would put it in front of my Political Bureau and that is the sequence of doing everything,” he said.
“But now you cannot tell me that you just issue a decree appointing such a number of your members into the SPLM Political Bureau. I told him [Ezekiel] that you talk about it among yourselves and when I come back from Lobonok you come and raise it in the next meeting,” he added.
The SPLM fractured into different groups following the outbreak of civil war in December 2013.