The Sudan People’s Liberation Movement in Opposition (SPLM-IO) is the biggest opposition party in South Sudan. It has also been the loudest political movement in recent days; for bad reasons.

Several official documents and reports released by senior members of the party depict sweeping power wrangles threatening to tear the party.

The internal chaos went public in May this year when the party’s General Chief of Staff Simon Gatwech Dual unilaterally fired Gen. Dhiling Keah Chuol, the group’s military intelligence chief, who was in the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, at the time, accusing him of being a “spoiler”.

SPLM-IO Chairman Dr Riek Machar, who also doubles as the country’s First Vice President, revoked the suspension of the military intelligence chief on the grounds of protocol breach. But Mr Gatwech maintained that his order suspending Mr Dhiling was holding.

The feud between Machar and his generals was amicably addressed. But it could not just have happened without the relief and reassignment of Gatwech, who was later offered a position by President Salva Kiir as an advisor for peace in the unity government-a position he turned down.

Continued dispute

While the dispute with Gatwech appeared quelled, the SPLM-IO senior members showed Mr Machar that they do not have a shortage of notoriety even when it means removing him singlehandedly from the party’s chairmanship. Duer Dut Duer, a former SPLM-IO Governor of defunct Sobat State, did exactly that.

Mr Duer unilaterally ‘dismissed’ Machar from the position of the party’s Chairmanship accusing him of corruption, nepotism, and incompetence in hard-hitting statements we could not reproduce here. In Dut’s fanatical world, no one else can lead the party out of the mess he claimed has been created by Machar, except himself.

In a document obtained by City Review in early July, Dut ‘suspended’ Machar and declared himself Chairman of the SPLM-IO.

Dut was not and is not being taken seriously by senior members of the party. And it looks unlikely that anyone will ever do so including Gatwech who had already stated that the declaration by Mr Dut was at a personal level.

At least the lack of backing seemingly and enormously helped Dut to either stay quiet or made him politically irrelevant to the advantage of Machar. But it never stopped the political drama.

Dismissal of Spokesperson

The latest twist in this power-related saga was the firing of Brig. Gen. William Gatjiath Deng, the SPLM-IO official spokesperson who was replaced by Col. Paul Lam Gabriel under a controversial circumstance.

In the letter dated July 13, 2021, Gatjiath was reassigned to the SPLM/A Headquarters. The reason for the reassignment was not publicised. However, it came after a damning audio recording attributed to Mr Gatjiath leaked.

In the audio, a person said to be Gatjiath, could be heard disclosing a discussion held with a senior national security official in Juba in an alleged plot to remove Machar. It was not clear whether from the position of the First Vice President or the SPLM-IO Chairman.

Mr. Gatjiath disowned the audio and its content saying it was doctored by ‘enemies’ who are unhappy with his presence at the party’s Headquarters.

“The SPLA (IO) office of information would like to inform the public that, the recorded voice being sent to social media is fake and it’s Photoshop and it has been created by the enemy, especially those who were unhappy with my coming back to the HQs. It has to be regarded as fake news of the day,” Gatjiath wrote on his Facebook timeline.

To Machar’s erstwhile loyalists, the desperate quest for power by internal rivalries is a political hallucination.

SPLM-IO Spokesman Both Baluang told City Review last week that the party is intact with Machar as the only recognized Chairman and Commander-in-Chief.

The chronicle of the crisis

Meanwhile, the political crisis within the country’s main opposition dates back to June 2020 when the appointment of Gen. Johnson Olony as the Governor of Upper Nile State was forfeited by Mr Machar. Olony never made regular public statements on the matter.

Since then, Olony, Gatwech, Gatjiath, three hot-headed Generals, were flushed down the drain and played it cool as Dut maintained his call for Machar to step aside from the party’s chairmanship. Will the disgruntled trio eventually regroup and back him? Only time can tell.