South Sudan President Salva Kiir dissolves parliament
South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir has dissolved parliament, paving the way for the appointment of Members of Parliament from opposing sides in the country’s five-year civil war.
His decision was announced on public television on Saturday evening but no date was given as to when the new Parliament will begin working.
Activists and civil society groups say the move is long overdue.
“It is a welcome development and we hope that the dissolution (will not) also open the way to a lengthy process towards reconstituting the Parliament,” Jame David Kolock, chairman of the South Sudan Civil Society Forum.
In September 2018, the peace deal was signed between Kiir and Vice President Riek Machar to determined that almost a quarter of the MPs would come from the party of Machar while the majority of the 550 legislators will be from the governing SPLM party.
South Sudan’s MPs will not be elected but will instead be nominated by different political parties.
The conflict that erupted in South Sudan in 2013 caused one of Africa’s worst humanitarian crises, with at least 380,000 people killed and millions forced from their homes.
A recent report by the UN has called for the arms embargo to be extended, and for new sanctions against people who hinder the implementation of the peace deal.
There are also warnings from the UN’s World Food Programme that more than seven million people in South Sudan will suffer acute food insecurity over the coming months.
For over a year, the unity government has been in place but following numerous outbreaks of inter-ethnic conflict the UN has warned of a risk of a return to large-scale conflict in South Sudan.
The dissolution of parliament came on the eve of a visit to the capital, Juba, by the US special envoy to South Sudan, Donald Booth.
“Of particular concern to the United States is the slow implementation of the Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan, ongoing violence, and deteriorating economic and humanitarian conditions,” the US State Department said in a statement.
