JUBA – The Other Political Parties (OPP) is set to go back to the drawing board and re-strategise on the appointment of lawmakers to the Reconstituted Transitional National Legislative Assembly.

This comes after President Salva Kiir revoked the initial list of appointees at the request of other OPP members who said the appointment was not made in consultation with the party structure.

Speaking to City Review on a telephone interview on Friday, OPP Secretary-General Albino Akol said the committee mediating the talks within the party has called for another round of talks after a disagreement within the party.

‘’Today (Friday) or tomorrow we are going for the final decision to agree between us on the (final) list of the members of parliament because the mediating committee called for the meeting today pertaining to the matter,” said Akol.

‘’Last Monday we have agreed after [a disagreement] because it was only one party that agreed on the wrong list of nominees, which the president revoked after the appointment. Now we are going for another round of talks,” he added.

OPP is one of the signatories to the Revitalised Peace Agreement signed in Addis Ababa in September 2018. The party that comprises both an alliance and an umbrella was embattled with a power-sharing crisis in the appointment of MPs in the Reconstituted Transitional Legislative Assembly and Council of States.

Last week, Kiir reversed the decree appointing some members of OPP to the reconstituted transitional legislature, affecting 28 individuals, including Peter Mayen, the leader of the party.

Some OPP members have accused Mayen of unilaterally submitting the list of nominees and allocating 10 seats in the reconstituted national legislature and two seats in the Council of States to his own party.

The leaders of political parties under OPP said those appointed in May did not represent all the six political groups.

The OPP has two groups involved in the power-sharing deal with one group comprising an alliance that has five parties, including the National Alliance for Political Parties, Africa National Congress, United Democratic Salvation Front, United Sudan Africa Party, United Democratic Party, and the Umbrella Party under Mayen.

However last week, Mayen insisted that he is the face of the OPP and claims that the current political gains the political umbrella is enjoying would have been almost impossible without his efforts.

“I am the one who signed the Khartoum Declaration. Without me the OPP would have not existed that is why I achieved what we called power-sharing. This agreement did not come by chance, it came as a result of participation,’’ said Mayen during a press conference held in Juba last week.

Meanwhile, the OPP Chairman is also facing backlash over what senior members from his party called “self-misconduct” after Mayen stirred controversy for allegedly stabbing his wife Aluel ‘Messi’. OPP is also pushing for his removal from the position of the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Management.