By Tereza Jeremiah Chuei
The Interim Secretary General of Sudan People’s Liberation movement in Opposition (SPLM-IO) Regina Joseph Kaba told the unity government to tackle the shrinking political space in the country.
Regina explained that the constitution gives the right to citizens to have space to express their political views, and therefore it should be provided to them within all the States in South Sudan.
She added that security forces within the country need to be enlightened on their role towards upholding the citizen’s rights, adding that one of their roles is protecting the civilian, arguing they shouldn’t be favouring a single party {SPLM-IG}.
Speaking to the Media yesterday, Regina said that “am calling on the government to provide political space for all the parties”.
The SPLM/A-IO interim secretary general said the country is used to one Party {SPLM-IG} but currently it’s moving towards multi-parties’ system.
She emphasized that there is need for political space to allow the parties to carry out their duties freely without any interference.
“The unity government that is the government for South Sudan and they are supposed to provide the basic for the citizens and one of this constitutional basic right are these political space and freedom of expression, and those are what the government should provide to it citizens,” she stated.
Regina said that all the parties should have right of political space, citing that only one party is enjoying and having the privileged within the country.
She lamented on the reason that led to the arrest of some of their members during their recent visit to Lakes State on 11th of August to launch SPLM-IO Lakes State Secretariat.
“Our Members were targeted because they are SPLM/A-IO members, they brought a bull and wanted to slaughter it, to welcome me to the State (Lakes), but the security organs refused, saying that it shouldn’t happen there that if they want to slaughter, they should slaughter it in the state secretariat, so that was the only argument they started with at the airport” she narrated.
She said one of the party members was arrested based on that scenario and when they (security) pulled him to their pick-up car the chairperson of the SPLM-IO in Lakes State, who also is the Deputy Governor of the State, also Jump in the car and then they took him along.
“There is very limited political space, started by the arrest of the chairperson by the security organ, and then detaining some of the MPs who are IO members, and also detaining Members who are in blue, we are still hearing news of our members being arrested, we are calling upon the Lakes State government to open up the political space to the citizens, we are all parties to this agreement,” Regina further stressed.