PUBLIC STATEMENT ON THE PASSING OF THE DRAFT TRANSITIONAL CONSTITUTION OF THE REPUBLIC OF SOUTH SUDAN 2011.

Date: 7 July 2011

Dear Compatriots,

The SPLM-DC would like to seize this opportunity to once more congratulate the people of South Sudan for their overwhelming vote for the secession of South Sudan to become an independent and sovereign state.

This vote was for them to pursue the course of political and socio-economic development of their choosing long denied them by the successive governments in Khartoum.

This unanimous vote would not have been possible without the consensus of the Southern Sudan political leadership achieved in the “All Southern Sudanese Political Parties Conference” held in Juba in October 2010 under the theme: “Southern Sudan United for a Free, Fair and Transparent Referendum”. It was the collective effort and determination of all the Southern political parties that delivered the impressive outcome of the referendum on Self-determination. No one party can claim that it alone was responsible for that outcome.

The Southerners welcomed the resolutions of the Conference with a sigh of relief for they gave them the hope that the nascent state will take off with its people united to face as one solid block the tremendous challenges ahead.

Fellow Citizens,

As soon as the result of the referendum became known, even before the preliminary results were announced on the 30^th of January 2011, the SPLM Leadership dishonoured the resolutions of the October Conference by appointing a one-party Constitutional Review Committee on the 21^st of January. The dishonouring continued till the members of the SPLM in the Committee rose to forty against a mere fourteen from the other political parties, civil society and faith-based groups. Attempts to use this inbuilt mechanical majority in the CRC and the disrespect of the non-SPLM members therein led on the 7^th of March to the withdrawal of the main opposition parties from the CRC. The Chairman of the Political Parties Leadership Forum (PPLF) should have called for a meeting of the PPLF to resolve the problems that led to the withdrawal. He did not, and the impasse continued.

Therefore, the constitutional review process started on the wrong foot. Rather than produce a constitution for the nation founded on the consensus of the political parties of South Sudan, the Committee delivered a one-party constitution tailored to fit the SPLM alone.

The PPLF meeting on 28^th April- 2^nd May, was turned into a talking shop by the SPLM whose members packed the hall, and even the meek proposals that were made by some of the parties that chose to take part in discussing that one-party constitution were contemptuously thrown in their face. Thus, the door was closed against any meaningful input by others.

Therefore, it is a misrepresentation for this constitution to open with the expression “we, the people of South Sudan”.

Dear Citizens of South Sudan,

The draft constitution is full of contradictions and denies Southerners rights they have wrested from the North, such as the federal system and land ownership.

The draft constitution is founded on the concept that the institutions of the regional Government of Southern Sudan (GOSS) have to be maintained in the new state because they were elected. But this is contradicted by making appointments into the very elected institutions! The concept in itself is untenable. The fact that it denies the existence of a transitional period and does not allow for power sharing, renders it to run contrary to the resolutions of the October Conference. The SPLM leadership has clearly reneged on those joint commitments by all the political parties. The SPLM leadership is now showing by deeds that the dishonouring of agreements is not, after all, a monopoly of Northern political parties.

The appointment of members into the elected SSLA and into the newly created “Council of States” is unheard of anywhere in the world. It is the worst corruption of its kind since the time Caligula appointed his horse to the Roman Senate!

Fellow South Sudan Masses,

Without shame or remorse, the draft constitution denies our people the federal system which they fought for even before Sudan’s political independence in 1956. This comes out clearly not only because the word “federal” is not mentioned at all, but the powers of any federal system are usurped and centralized in Juba. For instance, the President can now sack an elected Governor and can dissolve an elected State Legislative Assembly. Thus, we fought a central hegemony in Khartoum in order to replace it with exactly the same central hegemony in Juba. Southerners will not accept this slap in the face. In the words of the late Dr John Garang: The Oppressor has no colour. Do we need to be reminded that the Southern MPs vote for Sudan’s independence on 19 December 1955 was conditional on granting Southern Sudan a federal system in the independent Sudan? Do we need anybody to jog our memory that our Southern patriot, Ezboni Mundiri, was imprisoned in Maridi in 1958 because he stood for elections on the ticket of the Federal Party? Are our brothers in the SPLM leadership behaving in the same way the sectarian parties in the North behaved when they equated “federation” with “separation”? In that respect, did they forget the words of our hero, Fr Saturnine Lohure, Spokesman of the Federal Party by then, in Parliament in 1958? Is this a case of history repeating itself?

Fellow Citizens,

Let us not be told that the South is not ready for the federal system; we heard this before. Our people understood what this system meant fifty years before the North could accept it and they are now enjoying the benefits of federalism. It is the irony of fate that South Sudan is being denied its long articulated desire in the hands of its own sons and daughters at the dawn of independence.

Our people struggled for centuries to fight political and socio-economic exclusion in their own country. The solution they suggested to solve these twin exclusions was the federal system of government. But our experience with the North has shown us that agreements reached with Khartoum in that respect were always being dishonoured. So, we fought politically and militarily to rule ourselves by ourselves and to lay to rest the dishonouring of agreements. This is why we are here today. Now, in just three months after the people of South Sudan delivered that resounding vote for secession, they are being treated in the same way as they were under the Northern governments in Khartoum. It is the old wine in a new bottle, though the bottle is homemade!! How short our memory can be, sometimes!

Fellow countrymen and women,

We were aware from the word go that the SPLM leadership were determined to ram this ugly draft constitution through our throats. We heard them tell their MPs that even if there were a spelling mistake in the draft that should not be changed!! In their insistence to pass the draft as it is, they left no trick in the book. SPLM members in the Southern Sudan Legislative Assembly were intimidated and threatened. A lot of horse dealing and trading went on for the last two months since the Draft Constitution was tabled before the Assembly. Yet, we never tired of hoping that the SPLM members of the SSLA would search their conscience and stand with the wishes of their electorates as opposed to those of their party which clearly run contrary to the former. At some stage it appeared as if our wishes were not misplaced, but when the chips were down last night, only about ten (10) SPLM MPs stood with their people ignoring threats and inducements. We congratulate them on their courageous stand. History and posterity will remember them as politicians who never let their people down.

As we are engaged in the celebration of our hard won independence, the SPLM leadership was busy forcing members of the SSLA adopt the draft constitution without amendment. They succeeded and the bill was passed by 114 members of the SSLA late last night.

Last night was a black spot in the history of South Sudan. The SPLM used its mechanical majority to impose on South Sudan a constitution that fails to meet the requirement of representing the whole country as it lacks consensus. It is also, the embodiment of arrant dishonouring of agreements as it clearly backtracked from the resolutions of the All Southern Sudanese Political Parties Conference held in October 2010. Worst of all, it takes away the federal system which Southerners fought valiantly for and won from Khartoum. Furthermore, it does not set a date for the general elections at the end of the transitional period. Consequently, the SPLM-DC must make its position clear on the way this defective draft Constitution was PASSED WITHOUT AMENDMENT.

As citizens of South Sudan we are obliged to abide by it and respect its provisions, but at the same time, we serve notice that we shall use all the constitutional means to see that it is replaced by a better constitution that all Southerners can proudly claim to be their own.

Information Department

SPLM-DC.