The Minister of Presidential Affairs Nhial Deng Nhial has opposed a recent assertion by Peter Biar Ajak that President Salva Kiir’s leadership lacks legitimacy.
In an expansive statement released to the media on Monday, March 22, Nhial argued that President Kiir came into power on an ‘interim arrangement’ which was not conceived in a vacuum and therefore questions on legitimacy are baseless.
Nhial lashed at Biar for saying the Kiir lacked authenticity on grounds of not being elected, adding the pre-independence arrangement befitted the purpose and had all the legal frameworks.
He then said the country had planned for an election in 2015 which president Kiir would have clinched if violence of 2013 never interfered with the transition.
‘‘When President Kiir was elected in 2010 as the President of the Government of South Sudan, those who cast their ballots for him are the very South Sudanese who would have done so had elections be done in 2015,’’ he noted.
‘‘The fact that eligible South Sudanese voters voted in 2010 in the context of a unified South Sudan and were expected to vote in 2015 as citizens of independent South Sudan, does not affect one bit, the mandate they bestow upon whoever they vote into office,’’ he added.
He then went ahead to state that SPLM eyed power retention in the planned election and it was devoted to smoothen the transition into a democracy.
He stated, ‘‘the unfortunate events of 2013 denied South Sudanese the opportunity of exercising their inalienable rights to go to the polls and elect their leaders in 2015 as originally envisaged.
‘‘Had elections gone as planned, President Kiir and the SPLM would have undoubtedly sought the renewal of their mandate to run the country.’’
Biar had attended the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing where he accused the Juba administration of human rights subjugation and corruption.
These allegations have been rebutted by the government.
Nhial emphasised that the government is committed to fully implementing the 2018 peace agreement and the recent talks with SSOMA have yielded fruits.