The government has hinted at a plan to trim the size of the parliament by reducing the number of lawmakers in the Transitional National Legislative Assembly, in an apparent move to solve the wage bill glitch.
Last week, the state made an about-turn committing to hold an election in June 2023, days after rubbishing a possibility of transitioning to a democracy by 2022, as was envisaged by the 2018 peace deal.
And according to Presidential Press Secretary Ateny Wek Ateny, the election is on the plan but certain issues will be ironed out of first. Two of those issues are demarcating the electoral boundaries and possibly reducing the projected number of legislators, which according to him, could make the country end up with an expensive bloated legislature.
“The election cannot happen if the census has not been done and drawing the constituencies whether you leave South Sudan as it stood on the July 9, 2011 with 171 constituencies or you want to expand so that the parliament will comprise more than 200 or it will go to 300,” he said, adding: “now the parliament of the RTGoNU is going to be 550.”
Although the Revitalised Transitional Government of National Unity (RTGoNU) arrived at 550 as the befitting number of lawmakers; the government spokesperson thought this number would be too high.
“The numbers of representatives in the parliament should be commensurate with the demographics of the country. That means, if the representatives of the parliament are more than who they represent then there is need to draw the constituency,’’ he remarked.
Pending issues
Ateny addressed the press on April 14 where he expansively responded to the recent calls by self-exiled critic Dr Peter Biar Ajak, where the latter called on the US to coerce the government to hold election 2022, saying the peace deal agreement was being violated.
“Let us face it, elections are time consuming, in this context, peter’s demand that the general elections be conducted in just a year from now which is clearly impracticable, lacks context and demonstrates how bizarre his views appear,” he said, in response to Dr Biar.
Ateny then explained that the government had not yet agreed the budget because there was need for both parties to first agree when to hold the election.
“Let them do the process that will lead to the election. Let them first conduct census [which] also requires money. It is like an election because names need to be registered even for a child that is born at night but for election one will only register as an adult separately.
So the budget has not yet been determined and has not yet been discussed because that is the level we have not reached yet,” he clarified.
Currently, the government has partnered the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) to run the Population Estimation Survey (PEE) 2021, which is expected to be used in political and economic planning.
Beside this, the government official said there is need to come up with the budget to help the country factor in voter registration costs, census, electoral boundary demarcation, voting materials and security.
Peace deal
According to him, the National Election Commission would be established when the parties agree on time of the election and for having the census.
The 2018 peace agreement stipulates that the transitional period was meant to run for 36 months (3 years) after which South Sudan would hold an election that was meant to take place 2022.
Chapter 1.20.5 of the R-ARCSS opines that ‘sixty days prior to the end of the Transitional Period, the National Elections Commission (NEC) shall organize elections in accordance with the provisions of the permanent constitution adopted pursuant to the agreement.
Aside from these, certain crucial security engagements such as the unification of forces and streamlining and professionalizing the security apparatus remain a necessity.