Kiir has zero chance to win South Sudan’s next election – opposition leader

JUBA – South Sudan’s prominent opposition leader and chairman of the National Democratic Movement (NDM) Dr. Lam Akol Ajawin has said that the ruling Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) party under President Salva Kiir Mayardit has no chance of winning any free and fair election in the country.

This, Akol said, is because the Kiir’s party has been in power for around sixteen years and has not delivered anything but wars and corruption which he said does not warrant him a win at any election conducted in a free and fair manner.

“A party in power for 16 years with no record in service delivery to the people, only corruption and civil wars, has no chance in a free and fair election. Living on the past has a limit. Even the mud fish (Luth) eats its tail for survival only once,” Dr. Akol wrote in a tweet over the weekend.

This comes barely one month after President Salva Kiir Mayardit called on the ruling SPLM faction to prepare for elections slated for end of the transitional period in 2023 in which President Salva Kiir Mayardit said ‘new faces’ will take over the leadership of the SPLM party at the end of the transitional period.

The President who is also the chairman of the ruling Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) party made the remarks during a meeting with members of the SPLM Youth League in Juba on September 11, 2021 in which he called for timely conduct of elections to end the country’s unending wars at the end of the transitional period.

“When we go for elections, new faces will come in, not from the people who are working in the government now, but people you haven’t seen before and that way we will have peace in our country. From now, you prepare yourselves to engage with the grassroots, so that they know the program of the SPLM,” Kiir said.

The South Sudan president however did not specify who was going to take over from among the youth at the end of the transitional period, but there have been speculations in recent months that the president is preparing his son, Thiik Mayardit, for the leadership after appointing him as deputy executive director in the office of the president.

Kiir’s comments also comes after the People’s Coalition for Civil Action (PCCA) called for a popular uprising against Kiir’s government accusing it of failing to achieve promises made during the liberation struggle to the people of South Sudan.