Signatories to the South Sudan peace agreement are now split in the middle as President Salva Kiir has managed to pull some opposition parties to his side over the allocation of states.
In focus is President Kiir’s decision to allocate Dr Riek Machar’s Sudanese Peoples’ Liberation Movement in Opposition (SPLM-IO) governorship of states where he has no militarily presence and people’s support.
President Kiir allocated SPLM-IO Jonglei, Western Bahr El Ghazal and Western Equatoria State, forcing Dr Machar to reject the allocations.
The chairman of the Reconstituted Joint Monitoring and Evaluation Commission (R-JMEC), Gen Augustino Njoroge, has now written to the Inter-Governmental Authority on Development Igad heads of state to convene an extraordinary meeting and make a decision on the issue, after he received letters of complaints from four parties.
He suggested that the only way forward is to explicitly place the responsibility of allocating State and Local Government positions in the hands of the Parties and not the Presidency, as per the Article 1.16.4 of the agreement.
