South
Sudan’s President Salva Kiir has announced a new parliament including lawmakers
from opposing sides of the country’s civil war as part of a 2018 peace accord,
state television reported.
A
new legislative body was a condition of the 2018 accord signed between himself
and Vice President Riek Machar, for years on opposition sides during the
five-year civil war that left 380 000 people dead and four million displaced.
“Reconstituting”
the country’s parliament had been due in February 2020, but had still not taken
place, prompting the ire of the opposition.
Kiir
dissolved the previous parliament on over the weekend ahead of the change – more
than a year overdue.
A
decree by Kiir was then read out on the South Sudan Broadcasting Corporation
(SSBC) on Monday, including the names of the national assembly legislators.
In
accordance with the accord, the new assembly will number 550 lawmakers, up from
the previous 400.
Of
these 332 deputies were chosen by Kiir, 128 by Machar, and 90 others by
signatory parties, in line with the peace deal.
The
decree did not mention the upper house state council which was also dissolved
late on Saturday.
The
dissolution of parliament came on the eve of a visit to the capital Juba by US
special envoy to South Sudan Donald Booth.
The
US State Department had voiced concern at “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.”
Kiir
and Machar formed a coalition government in February 2020.
However
few provisions of the truce have been honoured, and analysts have warned of the
threat of a return to war.
The
oil-rich country remains severely underdeveloped and poorly managed.
Despite
the peace deal, brutal communal conflicts – often over cattle raiding –
continue, with more than 1 000 killed in violence between rival communities in
the last six months of 2020
(TODAY.NG)
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