President Salva Kiir buried the promise to reconstitute the National Legislative Assembly on May 10, appointing a number of legislators picked by the parties to the Revitalised Agreement on Resolution of the Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan (R-ARCISS).
It was fanfare as another milestone under the 2018 peace accord was finally achieved to pave way for the implementation of other chapters. They include boundary demarcation and constitution-making process steps to usher the country into a democracy.
The presidential decree that rendered the previous house and council of ministers functionless triggered both applause and criticism from various quarters.
As an example, while most previous appointments made in the national and the state governments followed the spirit of the peace deal, the City Review established the appointments of the lawmakers presented a checkered adherence to the document.
According to the appointees’ list released last week, SPLM-IG and SSOA have 306 and 47 members instead of 332 and 50 members respectively. Pursuant to R-ARCSS, ‘‘the Transitional National Legislative Assembly TNLA shall be expanded to 550 members where SPLM IG shall have 332 members, SPLM-IO 128 members, SSOA 50 members, OPP 30 members, while Former Detainees get 10 slots.’’ The appointments fell short of the numerical requirements of the deal.
Losers
The reconstitution also failed the bar in observing chapter 1.4.4 of the revitalised agreement which states that ‘‘provisions of the Transitional Constitution of the Republic of South Sudan and ARCSS on participation of women 35 per cent in the Executive shall be observed.’’
Last month, the Reconstituted Joint Monitoring and Evaluation Commission (RJMEC) revealed that only state appointments on Independent Commissions and County Commissioners had met the 35 per cent threshold. But even after that, if the latest appointments are to go by; women have not been allocated the 35 per cent of the seats.
For instance, the R-ARCSS requires that 192 of the legislators are women. But so far, a total of 160 women have been appointed and it is only a matter of time to establish whether this threshold will be met when the final list is out.
The deal further stipulates that SPLM and National Agenda parties are supposed to dish out 116 seats to women, but so far only 106 have been allocated. It also requires other seats to be distributed in the following manner: SPLM-IO 44 (37 allocated so far), SSOA 18 (13 allocated so far), OPP 10 (6 allocated so far) and FD 3 (2 allocated so far).
It remains unclear whether the youth had proper representation by being allocated seats in the parliament. Nonetheless, the peace agreement does not anticipate what young people could claim in terms of state appointments and representation.
The list came under criticism for failing to have a representation of people with disability. Even though, there is no legal provision for such inclusion, human rights activists have expressed concern about the snub.
‘‘I stand with people with disabilities. We can’t have a Parliament of 550 MPs with no meaningful representation of people’s with disabilities. It is very sad and unfortunate, this discrimination against them must stop,’’ tweeted Wani Michael, the Okay Africa Foundation Youth Representative.
Gainers
In light of R-ARCSS, SPLM enjoys the majority of the appointments with 332 where 306 has been met at the moment. And with the backing of the other affiliated parties, moving a motion in the floor of the house would be the easiest thing to do for president’s party.
Chapters 1.14/9/10 of the peace agreement read: ‘‘Decisions in the reconstituted TNLA on matters pertaining to this agreement shall be by consensus and failure to that, shall be by two thirds (2/3) majority of all the members; Decisions in the TNLA on other matters not related to this agreement shall be by consensus and in lieu of that by simple majority.’’
In a scenario of a full sitting, the government side would require a simple majority of 300 members or a 2 two-thirds of around 360 members which may not be too difficult to achieve.
Speaker nomination
The agreement further states that the speaker of the TNLA shall be nominated by the incumbent TGoNU whereas SPLM-IO shall nominate only one deputy speaker, and another who shall be a woman nominated by the incumbent TGoNU while Opp nominates the third deputy Speaker.
The current reconstituted legislature could have been formed right after the presidency completed the formation of executive arm of the government, states government and commissions. It didn’t happen.
Parties to the agreement dined and wallowed through a wave of disagreements and wrangles over key political positions thanks to lack of political will.
In March last year, some parliamentarians suggested that the reconstitution of the current new parliament was supposed to be delayed for weeks due to coronavirus fears, according to the chairperson of the information committee at the parliament.
The local media quoted him saying, “They [MPs] are for the opinion that okay why can you maybe delay it for some weeks then you reconstitute the parliament?”
He added that, “We are supposed to be reconstituted as a new TNLA but with this coronavirus, if you reconstitute this parliament from 400 to 550 [MPs] you put them together, I think the first guest will be the coronavirus to visit them,” Yoane suggested.
[Reported by Joseph Loful and Japheth Ogila]