Dropped elected lawmakers seek reinstatement to parliament

By Winnie Cirino

Some former SPLM lawmakers who were dropped when President Salva Kiir reconstituted parliament are disappointed after they were left out even though they were elected to parliament in 2010 contrary to President Kiir’s order to reinstate all elected members of parliament. 

The lawmakers are appealing to the President to reinstate them in parliament before the other lawmakers are sworn in. 

Henry Stephen Danga, a former MP representing Yei County in the National Legislative Assembly, was removed from parliament to make room for other lawmakers representing various political parties.

Danga says after President Kiir dissolved parliament and later reconstituted it in May, he and other lawmakers were dropped, but then on July 2nd, some of those lawmakers were reappointed including himself. But three days later, another decree was issued revoking only his appointment without explanation, he says. 

“I found myself singled out, this is where I felt annoyed, I said let them tell me my mistake if at all I had gone wrong somewhere, whether through the party, after all, I am no longer in the army,” Danga said.

Danga wrote a letter of complaint to the secretary of political affairs in the SPLM party, who checked the names of SPLM lawmakers and found that his name was on the list.

He says the secretary told him there are several people from other states with the same complaint and that he would write a cover letter on top of Danga’s written complaint and forward them to the President’s office. 

Danga says he wrote a separate complaint letter to President Kiir’s office and is awaiting feedback. He says it doesn’t make sense that he should be excluded from the reconstituted parliament as he was elected in 2010. 

“If I was to be pensioned or I am dismissed and told the reason, I would willingly accept but I am trying to go back because it is not my will, my people voted for me in 2010 general elections overwhelmingly. I won the elections tremendously, I got 35,000 votes, my second who followed me got 4,500,” Danga said.   

Danga emphasized that his term in office is supposed to end when the next election is held which is scheduled to take place in 2023 per the 2018 revitalized peace agreement. 

Gatluak Pech Dak was a lawmaker in the Unity state legislative assembly elected in 2010 but was appointed to the national parliament this year following the death of a national lawmaker who represented his area. He says he was surprised to learn he too was dropped from the list of MPs when the president reconstituted parliament in June. 

“If our constituency is not represented in the National Assembly and the same community are the ones who told me to represent them and now that my name is revoked and there is nobody from the same community, this is the question I ask because we need to know, if there is any time of the election, will SPLM go to that community looking for a vote from them? This is the question that I think in Unity state there is unfair allocation of seats.” 

Dak is asking President Kiir to reappoint him, saying he believes his dismissal was politically motivated. 

“Let the President look into the issue of Panyijar constituency and should also look at the issue of representing defunct elites in the national government and state government because in the SPLM, we are not represented, all our shares, the 5 seats which belong to the government are in the north, we look into this issue should be handled amicably for the future presentation because if we can decide not to accept any marginalization that one will not be good for the country.” 

Deng Mading, the acting SPLM information secretary and party spokesperson, says the list of SPLM legislators has already been corrected and that those who were elected in 2010 and omitted earlier by mistake have been reinstated. When asked about Danga and Kulang, Mading said they were once SPLM but have since left the party. 

“These are people who defected, they defected to other opposition parties, so they are not our people anymore,” Mading said.

However, Danga says he has never joined any opposition party since he joined the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement during the liberation struggle in 1990.

“I respected all my colleagues all my bosses, everyone, and I have never broken any law, I am not like those people who run to rebels and come back, this is not my behavior then again, the president of the republic, Salva Kiir Mayardit he made it an order that any elected member should not be tampered with, is not to be dismissed from the assembly, only those members who are appointed.”

Danga reiterated his loyalty to the SPLM party as in his letter to the President on 6th July.

“I won the elections by a majority of my people’s votes as an SPLM candidate, a cause I took pride in and remained loyal to the party and its principles of liberty, prosperity and Development. It would be awful for the good reputation of the party that I have built over four decades since I joined the movement in the 1980s,” Danga’s letter to President Kiir partly read.

According to the National Election Act 2009, a legislator’s term of office is 5 years, but in 2018 the parliament amended extended the term of office for President Kiir, the Vice Presidents and all members of parliament for another 3 years. 

This story was first aired on VOA’s South Sudan In Focus program Thursday, July 29th, 2021.