Africa-Press – South-Sudan. South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir Mayardit is reportedly considering the possibility of asking the Reconstituted Transitional National Legislature (R-TNL) for the extension of the transitional period on the ground that full implementation of the revitalized peace agreement requires more time, a SPLM official said.
This comes days after a peace retreat in Ugandan was cancelled. The meeting would have brought together all signatories of the revitalized peace agreement signed in 2018 to discuss the implementation process of the peace deal which has seen setbacks in its implementation over disagreements on key issues, especially the security arrangements.
The peace agreement was signed in September 2018, and the transitional government, which was eventually formed in February 2020, was supposed to be formed by May 2019, but disagreements between the parties remained until a key compromise of returning the country to ten states was reached in early 2020 paving way for formation of the transitional government.
The transitional government has so far failed to advance the implementation of key provisions of the revitalized agreement sticking only to chapter one which provides for power-sharing between the parties to the deal.
Kiir has previously said that the long-awaited election will be conducted at the end of the transitional period in 2023, something opposition leaders such as First Vice President Machar rejected as an attempt to rig elections given the lack of a professional security sector that can protect the elections.
The president has asked the international community to also support the elections, but analysts have argued that Kiir want to conduct ‘premature’ polls with the government’s security forces having upper hand in controlling the vote, something Machar sees as a ploy to beat him in the elections.
Speaking to Sudans Post this morning, a member of the ruling Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) party said he has information indicating that the Uganda retreat was to discuss a compromise between Kiir and Machar to give themselves more time, as proposed by President Museveni.
“The subject of the Uganda meeting is not for the conduct of elections in 2023, but rather, a platform to bring the leaders together so that they can ask the parliament to extend the transitional period for at least two or three years to implement the peace agreement fully,” the SPLM official said.
“The extension has been on the table from the Ugandan president because now, we remain with less than ten months to the end of the transitional period and the elections should be conducted 60 days before the end of the transitional period which means on we have less than eight months,” he said.
The official further added that “what has not been implemented within three years cannot be done overnight in a period of less than eight months and that’s why the issue of the extension has emerged because the Ugandan government does know if we are going to complete all these issues within the period of the remaining months.”
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