By William Madouk
Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) party on Thursday signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with South Africa’s National Congress Party to strengthen relations.
SPLM secretary-general, Peter Lam Both, and his South African counterpart, Fikile Mbalula signed the agreement at the SPLM House in Juba on behalf of the chairpersons of their respective political parties.
Both parties will strengthen and rebuilding their 40-year historical ties through a joint political school, training of cadres, and exchange of knowledge and experience.
ANC secretary-general, Mr. Fikile Mbalula, said, “We are very delighted that today we have signed this memorandum of understanding. But our ties and our journey do not begin today.”
“We have been together in the trenches to liberate our people from colonialism and apartheid,” he added.
He said political parties have to modernize, adapt, and be relevant all the time, adding that without them, they would not survive.
“In us, you’ve got allies. Have faith in our leadership, and trust and loyalty are what we build through the spirit of comradeship,” he stressed.
Meanwhile, Mr. Peter Lam Both, the SPLM secretary-general, cited that “the ANC has always been an inspiration to the founding of the SPLM/A in the 1980s.”
“So our ties, our bilateral ties—nobody can break them despite the difficulties that we go through—a liberation movement will always emerge strong,” he added.
David Makhura, the ANC head of political education for the principal of a political school, said the inking MoU reaffirmed working relationships to bring about transformation and a better life on the continent.
“In our MoU, we are going to work together on strengthening our parties and party building. On how these parties facing different challenges and going into the future are going to work together,” said Makhura.
“The second area of our MoU is about governance; we are going to support each other in improving. There will be a lot of training and exchanges, as we have always done, between South Africa and South Sudan,” he added.
The MoU also entailed training the party members and building leadership capacity, including party discipline, vision, and the values of the two sister countries.
Mr. Badagbu Daniel, the SPLM secretary for culture, information, and communication, said, “Today we have come to the end of a very historic visit of the ANC delegation led by the Secretary-General to the SPLM in South Sudan.”
“We will have a school, a political school, which will be a joint political school. The ANC and South Sudan will have a joint political school whereby we are going to train our cadres,” he added.
Mr. Daniel further cites, “We will be learning from the best practices of the South African people, and they will also learn from our best practices in the SPLM.”
Both South Sudan and South Africa shall hold elections in 2024, and the two parties are expected to contest in their respective nations.