Machar nominates long-time aide as speaker of Council of States

JUBA – South Sudan’s First Vice President and SPLM-IO Chairman Dr. Riek Machar Teny has nominated long-time aide, Deng Deng Akoon, as the speaker of the Council of States that was reconstituted last week by President Salva Kiir Mayardit.

Deng Deng Akoon comes from Northern Bahr el Ghazal state and has served for a very long time as office manager while Machar was still in office as a vice president prior to the December 2013 outbreak of conflict and he serves as the deputy minister of cabinet affairs prior in the revitalized government on the ticket of the Machar-led SPLM-IO.

He was identified as the SPLM-IO nominee for the position during a high-level consultative meeting of the main armed opposition group chaired by Machar on Saturday, according to a senior opposition official.

“He was named during a consultative meeting in Juba on Saturday. Many senior members of the SPLM-IO nominated him and Machar agreed to nominate him to represent the SPLM-IO as the speaker of the 100-member Council of States,” a senior opposition official told Sudans Post this morning.

On July 3, President Salva Kiir Mayardit reconstituted the Council of States, the upper chamber of the national legislature in South Sudan, appointing 100 members of different signatory parties to the revitalized peace agreement.

The move provided for in the revitalized peace agreement completed the overhaul of the transitional parliament into a functional legislature vital in the enactment of laws and reforms.

Representatives of all the parties to the agreement, the former transitional government, SPLM-IO, the South Sudan Opposition Alliance, SSOA, Other Political Parties (OPP), and the Former Detainees were appointed per the Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of Conflict in South Sudan.