Critic slams R-JMEC for ‘coup’ against citizens after endorsement of transitional period extension

JUBA – A prominent South Sudan activist has slammed the Reconstituted Joint Monitoring and Evaluation Commission (R-JMEC) for endorsing the extension of the transitional period, calling the decision a coup against the people of the world’s youngest country.

On August 4, President Salva Kiir and his first deputy Dr. Riek Machar Teny agreed to extend the transitional period by at least twenty-four (24) months, claiming that the remaining period of the transitional period will not be enough for implementation of pending tasks which they couldn’t, for some reasons, implement for the last three years.

On September 1, the R-JMEC in an extraordinary session met and decided to endorse, by a wide margin, the extension of the transitional period, with key-voting members such as the United States, United Kingdom, and Norway refusing to vote, saying the parties should have first convinced the people of South Sudan that they were going to deliver what they couldn’t for the least three years.

“With today’s vote in the Reconstituted Joint Monitoring and Evaluation Commission (RJMEC) to extend the transitional period, South Sudan’s leaders again extended their time in power despite failing over the past four years to deliver fully on the commitments they made in the 2018 Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan (R-ARCSS),” the Troika said in a statement extended to Sudans Post.

“We regret that the government did not postpone ratification of the extension to give time for them to demonstrate – through sustained action and results on the ground – that the new commitment as set out in the roadmap will be different from the last few years,” the statement added.

Separately, prominent J1 critic and former member of the R-JMEC Wani Michael rejected the endorsement of the extension by the peace monitoring body and described it as a ‘coup’ perpetuated against the people of South Sudan.

“R-JMEC FINAL COUP against the Citizens,” he described it, adding that “it is just sad that some few individuals can sit and decide on when and how South Sudanese should be governed but not the citizens themselves.”