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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
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