QUOTE: "We shed a lot of blood for this country; we are not going to give up our country for a mere X on a ballot. How can a ballpoint pen fight with the gun?”  Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe’s warning to the opposition MDC during the last national elections. 

As southerners earnestly start the elections campaigning, with the southern dominant SPLM quickly self-imploding and loosing popular support, it isn’t surprisingly apparent that in comparison, Jellaba President Omar al Bashir, at the launch of his campaign, has proved, out-and-out more statesmanship-like, diplomatic and reconciliatory than our own Salva Kiir Mayardit, the current President of South Sudan.

Whereas in the al Bashir's NCP-jellaba controlled North, the SPLM-nominated presidential hopeful, Yassir Arman and other jellaba contestants like Siddiq al Mahdi, are crisscrossing the country untrammeled, in the south, the Kiir's SPLM, in comparison, is arbitrarily impeding and physically obstructing and intimidating rival contestants.

Peremptorily, our own SPLM Chairman, Kiir Mayardit, in callous collusion with unelected and undemocratic Garangese micro-tyrants, has dug the knife deep into the gaping schism and bleeding heart of the Movement by his unpopular decision to expel the now-ejected SPLM independent candidates.

Kiir and the SPLM are dangerously facing a groundswell of internal opposition and growing indifference with party supporters who are silently supporting these expelled and one-time SPLM party giants, and that sums up to critical loss of potential seats.

Having admitted to the prevalence of blatant irregularities and procedural mistakes in the electoral screening and nomination of aspiring party candidates, the Chairman, Kiir himself, should at best, have overridden his malicious and not-some-much-liked Secretary-general, Pagan Amum, for and in the best interests of the Movement and the South, at large.

Without beating too much around the bush and whatsoever the inexplicable mitigating factors leading to the decision, the SPLM Movement, now turned into a political party for the sole interests of the prescribed minority, can now be perceived as a party in precipitous decline and loss of popular appeal.

Yes, all southerners joined the SPLM (Movement) then and fought for liberation and lost their precious blood for the motherland of south Sudan, because the Movement was the ONLY vehicle that would lead us to the Promised Land.

Expectedly, with the peace and dominance of south Sudan, politically and militarily, the SPLM/A was looked upon as the primary institution that would bring to the terminal end the suffering that southerners had endured for centuries.

That, obviously, has hardly materialized as the Movement, for which many dearly committed themselves to with their lives and bodies, has ended up being hijacked by a bunch of self-seeking dictators and one-tribe hegemonists absolutely unqualified and incapable of civilized and good governance.

Astonishingly, Chairman Kiir Mayardit, has so quickly forgotten the calamitous crisis-ridden past history of our struggle or ever wondered why he is today the only luckiest survivor of the original High Command whence better colleagues have been brutally eviscerated during the 22 years of the struggle.

Moreover, during the long struggle, the SPLM/A Movement oversaw and experienced unprecedented levels of gross inhuman indecencies and crimes, deliberately inflicted by ourselves on ourselves that finally climaxed in the almost disastrous split of 1991.

Nobody in the south wants a repeat of that era, again; especially when the Movement (SPLM/A) had to selectively kill all those southerners who supported the notion of independence of the south or because one belonged to a particular tribe or region.

By so unwisely succumbing to those election-dodgers themselves like Pagan Amum, Ann Itto and the like-minded, who wrongly persisted in expelling the popular SPLM Independent Candidates, President Kiir has fatally shot himself in the foot and irreversibly corroded the popular base of his SPLM political party.

Fear of the unknown and uncertainty of the election outcome will incrementally abound plentifully within the dysfunctional colossus known as the SPLM party as their previously presumed success in the elections has been critically challenged and put to the test.

Now, as Kiir’s so-called officially selected and sanctioned SPLM candidates are maniacally anticipating inevitable failure in the polls, Chairman Kiir Mayardit and his Siamese-twin-like bloodhounds in the SPLA security organs have resorted to the intolerable terror and intimidation tactics of President Mugabe’s infamy.

Kiir and the SPLM are unashamedly regressing into the abyss of tyranny, authoritarianism and political lawlessness as evidenced by the spasmodic attempts of extrajudicial incarceration and terror-tactics across the south, especially against his political nemesis, the SPLM-DC.  

To demonstrate his woeful lack of political tact, Kiir replaced only some State governors and left his distasted accomplices in their seats even though these people are very unpopular, such as Central Equatoria State governor, the incompetent and blood-thirsty Clement Konga.

Similarly, in Northern Bahr el Ghazal State, the not-so-electable Governor Paul Malong, another Kiir’s bad favorite, is arbitrarily imposing his own version of ‘Mugabistic’ totalitarianism in the State by circumscribing the political freedoms of his gubernatorial opponents.

As southerners restlessly watch Kiir atavistically resorting to a one-man dictatorship impregnated with Mugabe-like phobia during the current elections period, we, as a nation, have serious reason to worry about the future of the new emerging South Sudan Nation.

Today, the once-united south Sudan, which hitherto had a common and consensual agenda and objective, has become severely decapitated in just 5 years of the failed reign of Kiir

As undisputedly epitomized by this election, there are now several divergent political parties, each with different platforms and interests, vying for support from a clearly bamboozled southern electorate while that primordial and vital secession issue has been unpredictably pushed into the corner.

Let it be unequivocally reiterated that what the South Sudan Nation needs now is a leader who can keep focused on the ultimate objective of consummating the final independence and statehood we have been waiting for.

If only there was a fair and equitable political platform, where leaders are judged by their competence and other civilized attributes, and not because ‘it’s-their-right-to-rule,’ our one and only Kiir Mayardit would never ever pass the test.

Finally, as the great Chinese philosopher, Confucius, once said, “If people lose confidence in their ruler, the State itself may collapse.”

Fate or the Kiir Mayardit's SPLM shouldn't bring that on us, but looking around us, Kenya is a failed State, and Zimbabwe has collapsed.

What will a seemingly reluctant, lackluster and oblivious presidential candidate, Kiir Mayardit, fatefully bestow in the future on our South Sudan Nation?

 SSN Editor Comment...Click Here