South Sudan’s parliament is set to be inaugurated tomorrow (23rd-Aug-2021), after hundreds of lawmakers were sworn in to a newly created national parliament in the beginning of the month.
588 MPs, making up delegates from the ruling party and former rebel factions who signed the truce, took the oath of office at a ceremony in Juba presided over by the chief justice on August 2nd -2021. 62 MPs remained absent from the swearing-in ceremony, it was said that some did this because of squabbles with the government over the power-sharing arrangement.
The creation of the national parliament is a long-overdue condition of a peace deal that ended civil war in the country. Creation of an inclusive national assembly was akey condition of the 2018 ceasefire that halted five years of bloodshed that had persisted between government and rebel forces that left hundreds of thousands dead.
The clerk of the assembly, Makuc Ngongdit, says all members in and outside Juba,are expected at the nation’s Freedom Hall from 10a.m, where the function will take place. President Salva Kiir, all his five deputies, advisers, national ministers, and heads of the independent commissions, top judicial officials, army general, police and security are expected at the function that will mark the start of official business for the upper and lower houses of the national assembly.
The inauguration of the national parliament will mark the completion of formation of the government at the national level, paving way for parties to the agreement to nominate for appointment and reconstitution of the state members of parliament representing all the parties to the 2018 revitalized agreement. Like several other urgent and crucial provisions of the peace accords, convening of parliament went long unfulfilled, eroding trust between political rivals in the country.