Former Sudanese Foreign Minister and head of SPLM-DC, Dr. Lam Akol seen here in a 2005 photo (AFP/File/Salah

One has to really go back and examine the framework provided for by the Comprehensive Peace Agreement to appreciate this perspective. Although the CPA functions as a transformative tool to facilitate democratic transition, it has its flaws--and both the SPLM and NCP--the key partners to the agreement--have used the deficiencies to their advantage.

First, the CPA envisages a "two systems, one country" model. The South gets its own president and independent institutions such as the central bank, justice, police, army and so forth. On the one hand, the north envies the south’s semi-autonomy and often accuses it of “behaving like an independent country.” The north, on the other hand, carries on with its daily business with little regard for the south.

Mr. Bona Malwal captured this dilemma aptly in his 2007 critique of the SPLM boycott of unity government: "the two main parties to the CPA, the NCP and the SPLM, have bound themselves under the CPA, to a Catholic Church type of no-divorce-marriage, until the people of South Sudan decide in the year 2011.

"In the Catholic marriage," he explains, "only death allows parties to part ways. Self-determination referendum in 2011 is the only event that may let the parties depart under the marriage called the CPA."

From this point of view, the ruling can best be described as “dead on arrival” unless the SPLM experiences a major change of heart to accommodate SPLM-DC as an opposition group in the south.

To start with, the jurisdictions in the north don’t register in the south and vice versa unless they adhere to the CPA provisions. If there was mutual observance of the partners’ laws, the north would have handed over the warlord Gabriel Tanginya (a.k.a. Gabriel Gatwech Chan) to the south to face the law for orchestrating massacres in Malakal. However, the north refuses to heed the calls by South Sudan President Salva Kiir and South Sudan Legislative Assembly to surrender the culprit, simply because he’s an asset in their war against the south.

Conversely, the south abhors northern jurisdictions, and the SPLM-DC “victory” isn’t an exception since it is being trumpeted by the north.

As much as Dr. Lam Akol hails the court’s decision as a “victory of constitutionality,” he might be disappointed to know the ruling isn’t a cure-all for all his southern misfortunes. Nevertheless, despite possible stonewalling of the decision by the SPLM, Lam and his supporters can cheer-- insofar as it grants them public relations lottery.

Of course, Dr. Lam is already squandering this golden opportunity with his recent blunder on South Sudan independence.  He told reporters in Khartoum on Sunday that the secession of the region under the SPLM “would be suicide.” He’s since come out to do damage control as this South Sudan Nation article claims.

Akol deals himself a major blow when he tackles the touchy issue of independence for the south with less clarity. He’d have looked presidential if he had said the south should only sought its independence under SPLM-DC or risks “Somalization” or mirrors “suicide-like” scenario under the SPLM.  Instead, he leaves room for ambiguity to his own political chagrin. 

With three months to go before the general elections, Dr. Akol’s dream of being a formidable leader of the opposition in the south, as he told me here in November, is slowly being jettisoned.

Despite his insistence that in a democracy it’s not a “zero sum game” where the winner takes all, Akol’s party continues to cry foul over what it claims is SPLM’s censuring of its activities, with its alleged closure of its offices, detention and harassment of its cadets in the south. The Khartoum ruling is unlikely to change the political equation in the south. 

Comments (0)

Subscribe to this comment's feed

Show/hide comments

Show/hide comment form