OPP petitions President Kiir to revoke “flawed” nominations
Other Political Parties (OPP) have petitioned President Salva Kiir requesting him to revoke the appointment of its members to state assemblies, citing irregularities.
The Spokesperson of OPP, Albino Akol, told The City Review on Saturday that they rejected the appointments on grounds that there were no consultations with the leaders of the six parties in the political alliance who are signatories to the agreement.
Akol said some of those who were appointed to the state assemblies on the ticket of OPP are not members of the political parties within the umbrella.
According to him, the appointment came as a shock to the leaders of OPP at a time when they were still discussing how the eight seats would be distributed among the affiliate parties.
Mr Akol explained that the National Alliance Political Party would be given two seats in each state assembly. He added that the umbrella of political parties would also be given two seats in each state assembly, while the rest would be given one seat in each state.
“That was the proposal that the leaders of OPP were discussing, and it was almost agreed upon except for one party who disagreed with this, and the negotiation was ongoing,” he said.
Yet to agree
“The leaders of OPP wrote to the President an official complaint to inform him.” That complaint addresses all the irregularities that happened and was taken by one of their members by leaking a list that was not agreed on by the President. We believe that he went and forged it to convince the President that this was the list that we agreed on, “he added.
In their petition, the leaders of OPP also alleged that there was a serious forgery that had taken place, given that the list was drafted behind the back of other members.
For instance, Akol said about 34 members of the National Political Alliance party were appointed in the name of the National Alliance but are not members of the National Alliance political party. He argued that the chair of the national alliance, Kornelio Kon, did not know those members.
To point out the anomalies, Akol gave an example of one person bearing names that are not found in Central Equatoria, and was appointed as a representative of the African Congress Party (ANC) which is a signatory to the agreement, but the ANC had an idea about the move.
He lashed out at the incident as he revealed that the ANC was exploring legal options to bring the responsible person to account.
“It is a crime, punishable by law. “The ANC is now taking action against somebody who made this mistake of being a nominating authority or even an appointing authority,” said Akol.
Similar irregularities happened within the OPP in April 2021 when the President appointed 30 members of the alliance to the national transitional assembly, which was also rejected by the leaders of the umbrella and the appointment was later revoked.
Among the 30 members appointed to TNLA was an alleged Ugandan national who was nominated by Peter Mayen to represent a constituency in Yei River County. The appointee was rejected by the community, which created a public debate questioning the transparency of the leadership of OPP.
