By Tereza Jeremiah Chuei
South Sudan which earlier prepared its candidate to compete in the Pan African Parliamentary elections has reportedly been kicked out of the race in the continent parliament top seat elections held in South Africa on Wednesday due to eligibility concerns.
This came after the delegates from South Sudan led by the Speaker of the Reconstituted Transitional National Legislative Assembly (R-TNLA) Rt. Hon. Jemma Nunu Kumba left for South Africa about five days ago to participate in the elections.
However, The Public Relations Officer in the Office of R-TNLA Speaker, Ador Deng Ador told No. 1 Citizen Daily Newspaper in an inclusive interview that South Sudan has been blocked out after new rules were imposed in the last minute by the Pan-Africa Parliament saying Eastern Africa is no longer eligible to participate this year’s elections.
Pan African Parliament is the Legislative branch of the African Union, composed of all African Nations member States, and South Sudan by default is member of the Pan-African Parliament (PAP).
The leadership of PAP is led by the president of the bureau, and South Sudan candidate was Contesting for the Presidency of Parliament for Pan African.
“The process went well, South Sudan has done tremendous job, they made a lot to reach this level, the Africa is divided into five regional blocks according to Pan African Parliament, the northern region, southern region, eastern region, western region, and central region,” he added.
“It happened that yesterday 28th of June 2022 was the opening of the parliament and the body that is consent of the election is African Union competition of the legal desk, so yesterday in the opening of the parliamentary session the rules were readout, the rules that was used today,” Ador said.
He however noted that the rules for this year’s election stated that only the northern and southern regions will contest in the elections, locking out the three regions including east Africa where South Sudan belongs.
“South Sudan happen to be part of the eastern region of Africa, so in the process the reaction from the delegate across the Africa continent rejected that proposal yesterday, in the ground that this is just a proposal, so this proposal must be brought before the parliament to be adopted” Ador explained.
“So the parliamentary procedures has to be pass by the parliament first before being applied, we were hoping that, the idea will be accepted by the leadership of African Union until this morning (Wednesday) we got that there was no change, the proposal was imposed like that and South Sudan was finally blocked out this evening,” he lamented.
He further noted that South Sudan was supported by over forty nations across the continent, rising the hopes that South Sudan was 90 percent going to win ‘although unfortunately the process went like that.
“It has remained only Zimbabwe which is falling on the South Africa,
South Sudan was expected to benefit a lot from this position if they would have won, one of them was that they were going to become the central player within the region and internationally, and also the international laws that are many times applied on the African continent their opinion is always conceded” Ador underscored.
The Public Relations Officer in the Speaker’s office encouraged the Ambassador that represented South Sudan in the elections advising him that there is still future a head, so he shouldn’t give up.
“We have faced a lot of difficulties before and still facing as a Country and this is one of the resistance toward advancement of South Sudan into international politics, we still have a lot of chances a head” he consoled.