By William Madouk
Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) Secretary-General, Peter Lam has said that no political party can defeat the incumbent in the 2024 general elections.
“We believe SPLM; nobody can defeat us in an election in South Sudan because of what we stand for,” SPLM party general secretary said.
He noted that the party stands for the people, with the objective to establish a democratic, prosperous country, focusing on the prosperity of the people as the main driving force.
The party Secretary-General made this remark yesterday during signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the SPLM and African National Congress (ANC), South African ruling party.
The memorandum aims at strengthening ties between the two parties, train cadres, and have a joint political school.
Lam claimed that about 80 percent of the population in the country is illiterate and facing eminent poverty and no party could salvage them except the SPLM.
“Now that is a heavy responsibility for SPLM to lift these people out of poverty and bring them to prosperity,” he added.
“We can work together, we can unite together, and we will always defeat our enemies.”
The SPLM secretary-general, who could not hide his happiness over the deployment of the unified forces, said the real battle now remains on the ballots.
“We have now completed five critical aspects that must happen in order for the election to take place,” Lam noted.
“Now comes the real task of organizing ourselves as a party. With other parties in this country whose number is 58, go to the political parties’ council and register themselves, and let us compete democratically,” he continued.
According to him, the elections would bring an end to the ever-evolving transition period, and the elected party would embark on developmental activities.
“We will have a clean government that is elected by people, and that will lead our people in the next decades throughout this country with peace,” he explained.
Lam assured that once voted into power, this now can put the SPLM party in a position to provide basic services, electricity, and education, expand roads, and diversify the economy by investing in agriculture, mining, and the oil industry sectors.
“This is our dream for the next five to ten years—that South Sudan must reach where the rest of Africa is! Because we will have no excuse in a peaceful environment not to deliver services,” he amplified.
President Salva Kiir recently reconstituted the National Constitutional Review Commission (NCRC), the National Elections Commission (NEC), and the Political Parties Council (PPC), putting the country ripe for the 2024 polls.
According to the roadmap for the extension of the transitional period, the election will be conducted on December 22, 2024, and the transitional period will end on February 22, 2025.
But currently, the peace monitoring bodies and civil society are concerned that the remaining 13 months until elections must be properly utilized so that elections take place. As RJMEC said, the implementation of the peace agreement was slow.
In August, President Kiir said his government had reached “a critical phase in the consolidation of peace in our country” as he called on the peace partners to join hands and make the election a reality.
The president told the doubting Thomases of the election that the plan to have the exercise was not empty talk.