JUBA – South Sudan government has rejected a proposal by South African Vice President David Mabuza for resolving the states impasse through arbitration, a senior government official said on Thursday.
Michael Makuei Lueth, government spokesman and information minister, refuted claims that Juba accepts the recommendation by IGAD’s panel of experts led by South African Deputy President David Mabuza to take the contentious issue to the African Court on arbitration.
“We have not rejected the South African Deputy President’s proposal. But it is a mere proposal — and it’s outside the agreement. We should conform to the agreement,” Makuei told South Africa’s Daily Maverick.
Mabuza’s team, which comprises of Kenya’s special envoy to the South Sudan peace talks Kalonzo Musyoka, Uganda’s special envoy to South Sudan Betty Bigombe and IGAD envoy Ismail Waise said the disagreements between South Sudanese warring parties over the number of states should not holdup the formation of the Unity government, due February 2020.
However, Makuei said that proposal contradicted the Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of Conflict in South Sudan.
“There is no question of taking it to arbitration. Those who talk about arbitration are not very well versed with the (revitalized) agreement,” he said.
Mabuza’s proposal has left the opposition with a bitter taste. The Deputy Representative of main opposition SPLM-IO in Tanzania, Ambassador Peter O. Kleto Aharanya told Paris-based Sudan Tribune that Mabuza was rooting for Kiir to have a stronger position and influence in the joint government.
“The fact that David Mabuza wanted the government to be formed before the court means he has agreed with the government position to maintain the unpopular 32 states and this in our view cannot be a position of a mediator, but of someone who has already taken side,” Kleto was quoted as saying.
“The 32 states were created by a presidential decree, not through a referendum and therefore, creation of more states when you cannot even develop the 10 states is an unwise decision,” he stressed.
Kleto adds voice to the head of the group’s committee for defense, Angelina Teny who said that the referring the issue would mean extending the pre-transitional period which means a further extension of the February 22. deadline.
“To us they are automatically proposing an extension of the pre-transitional period … the legislature cannot be formed without having addressed the issue of the number of states, so this is one clarification we wanted to make,” Teny told reporters in Juba.
Alan Boswell, senior analyst on South Sudan for the International Crisis Group, described the proposal as “dead on arrival”.
South Sudan had 10 states when it seceded from Sudan in 2011 to become Africa’s newest nation and this number is stipulated in the constitution. But in 2015 Kiir unilaterally increased the number to 28 and then later 32.
The opposition believes he added the extra states to gerrymander greater support for his own Sudanese Peoples Liberation Movement (SPLM). They insist that the constitution is explicit that South Sudan comprises only 10 states and that only a constitutional amendment approved by two-thirds majority of both houses of Parliament can change that.
