South Sudanese rival leaders ousted vice president Riek Machar as head of his party and its armed forces, accusing the rebel-turned-politician of no longer representing their interests, reported Africa News.
The party’s military wing said Machar was deposed following a three-day gathering of senior leaders from the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-in-Opposition (SPLM-IO), in the country’s far north.
The party declared its chief of staff, First Lieutenant General Simon Gatwech Dual, as the interim leader of the opposition movement.
In a statement, the party’s military wing said Machar had failed to showcase leadership and also weakened the party’s position in the post-war South Sudanese coalition government formed in 2020. It said that that he had engaged in a years-long policy of divide and rule, followed nepotism, and did nothing to advance their cause.
“As a result, the meeting saw there was no option rather than to come up with the decision and finally prompted to declare the denouncement of Dr. Riek Machar Teny Dhurgon from the chairmanship of the SPLM/A-IO,” the statement said.
Machar played a big role in forcing President Salva Kiir to sign a peace deal in 2018 as well as in the formation of a South Sudanese unity government.
After gaining independence from Sudan in 2011, South Sudan plunged into fighting when Kiir’s forces clashed with Machar’s forces in the capital. The clashes resulted in the death of hundreds of civilians in Juba. Around 400,000 people were killed during the five-year-long civil war.
After a string of failed peace accords and violated ceasefires, a fresh truce paused the fighting in 2018. As per the arrangement, Machar entered the unity government as the South Sudanese deputy president in February 2020.
But some key provisions of the peace accord still continue to remain unfulfilled, resulting in disappointment among Machar’s party members. Some of the party members are complaining they had lost out under the power-sharing arrangement struck with the ruling party.
