There are people now who are flexing their muscles that they want to sit on this chair, but this chair is very hot. Don’t think that anybody sitting there, flying the flag is the most prestigious person — is enjoying. No!! The day I will leave this office, I hope I leave it healthy to go and rest so that I just learn how to sleep without anybody knocking at my door at night or anybody calling me on the telephone to report on the crises that are developing in some areas
–PRESIDENT KIIR–
The constitutional debate is entering its final stages. SPLM has endorsed a draft consultation, but politicians, including the vice president have been pushing several other drafts. President Salva Kiir spoke to Parliament for two hours about the constitution-making process, the mushrooming constitutions, and why the Presidency, so yearned after by many, is a hot spot. EDITOR MABIOR PHILIP MACH captured that – and the most insightful parts of the speech — which, unbelievably, everyone in the media, apparently, missed:-
YOU DON’T KNOW A THING
There are things that need me to really talk about here. There is no assumption from any of you that I will remain the president of South Sudan for life. No! And if you see these powers [in the transitional constitution] as being given in the name or in the personality of Salva Kiir, then you don’t know what you are doing; you don’t know what you are talking about. How many presidents will come after me? And how long do you think that I will stay in this office?. If anyone thinks making census, setting up national institutions, and many more, can be done in a very short time, then the elections should be drawn closer to six-month’s time, instead of 18 months or 2 years.
There are people now who are flexing their muscles that they want to sit on this chair, but this chair is very hot, my brothers and sisters. It is a very hot seat, the hottest. Don’t think that anybody sitting there, flying the flag is the most prestigious person — is enjoying. No! The day I will leave this office, I hope I leave it healthy to go and rest so that I just learn how to sleep without anybody knocking at my door at night or anybody calling me on the telephone to report on the crises that are developing in some areas. You are better in your positions. You can enjoy everything.
THIS CHAIR IS HOT
Now I have seen Americans debating: why do presidents grow old very quickly once they get into office? And they brought their presidents from the beginning up to Bush and then they brought Obama, I think after one year in office. Now if you see president Obama when he went to that office and you compare it to his appearance today you will notice a great difference. So they were asking, what is making the presidents like this?. Stress is one. They said stress and this is what I have just mentioned to you now.
You are stressed. You lose your best friends that used to sit down with you and you talked to them. Those sweet conversations are not any longer there. You are not there! You are just occupied with official things. You lose even your diet because you are forced to eat what you don’t want. And you cannot go to your restaurant to choose for yourself. Well, if you mention them, you can go to a very long list.
So the people who are now flexing their muscles to come and occupy this chair must know that it is a hot seat and so when you talk about the powers (being) concentrated in my hands, does not mean that I will be the only president of South Sudan. But there is necessity of having a powerful president.
Now, for example, if there is insecurity in the country – it may not start here in Juba where I am; It may start in Upper Nile, which is one of the frontline states; it may start in Unity state; it may start in Warap; it may start in Aweil, in Raja, in WBG, in WES and then EES and Jonglei. Now, can we leave that situation to be handled by the governor, or does it need intervention of the center from the president? Who will declare a state of emergency in the country? Is it the governor? Even in his own state, can the governor declare a state of emergency without the authorization from the president? No. But why do people just waste their time on things that are clear?
Last time I was in the states and they said the president should not encroach on the powers of the governors. I told the governors: I don’t want your powers; I have enough powers and even I delegated some to other people. You can quote President Nelson Mandela. Mandela said that his problem is not power, but his problem is how to use it because power, if you have it you must be very careful with it.
If you misuse it you can do what is happening now in the Arab world. You will kill your own people. This is what I have seen the human beings comfortable with. If they get someone who beats them on the head, kalas (ok), they respect you. That is not respect. It is fear. You have frightened people, even to accept anything [that] is not true. That is not the democracy we want. The democracy (we want) is that you give freedom to people to talk, but they [should] talk logically [on issues] that can develop the country, not to organize to destroy the country. So these powers, one day, you will appreciate that they can help you. Now in Lakes, what is happening in Lakes, if I don’t intervene, do you think that this thing happening there in Lakes will stop? It will not stop.
COMPETING CONSTITUTIONS
The points of concern are that there have been so many documents mushrooming from where I do not know and you cannot really identify the authors of these documents called constitutions. There are so many constitutions. And this is what you will not tell me here, but you will have to answer to yourselves. I remember when I called the SPLM caucus –those who were present – in J1, in the conference hall, I told them this: that this document has been passed by the majority in the SPLM. It was passed in the SPLM Political Bureau and it was passed at the Council of Ministers.
So you, as members of SSLA, have to pass this document without any delay. If there is any point that needs rephrasing, it should be welcome. Rewording will not be a problem. But I thought your business will have to concentrate on the official document, which was presented and handed to the Speaker by the minister of Parliamentary Affairs. All other documents should have not been allowed to circulate among yourselves – documents, which are based on personal interests or tribal bases, whatever it is.
Each party, we were about 18 or 23, which included political parties from the north – we included them because there are southerners in those political parties, and so it will be up to them after the ninth of July to change their colors and adopt another name for their parties, or to continue with the same name provided that they will have to be registered here, in South Sudan. All the political parties will have to be registered — including the SPLM. We were registered in Khartoum, but we must be registered here; this is now an independent separate state from that one in northern Sudan. So, when these constitutions come to you, your concern should be nothing really to do with those constitutions.
Have nothing to do with those constitutions.
You have one official constitution that you should concentrate on, and deliberate on – and rephrase what you want to do. But the constitutions that are now circulating are about ten.
ON MACHAR’S PIGEON HOLE CONSTITUTION
One constitution, a draft constitution was from the office of the Vice President of GoSS.
The VP is a member of the executive and he was in the SPLM Political Bureau discussions as the Vice Chairman of the SPLM when this constitution was passed by the party. He was also present in the Council of Ministers and participated in the deliberations when the ministers discussed this, and everybody threw in whatever he or she wanted to say about the constitution.
The members of the technical committee who worked on the constitution were present in the Council of Ministers and were given that opportunity also to clarify whatever point that was raised by the other ministers. It was after that that we adopted the transitional constitution and we passed it to the honorable house.
Now, the draft document that came out from the Office of the Vice President was not really the official version of the document. When I got a copy in my office, I gave it to my legal advisor to go through the points that were raised in the document and checked through the resolution of the Council of Ministers.
In the resolution of the Council of Ministers, there was nothing like what he (VP) was raising. So we put it aside that this is something that cannot really continue to go to the assembly because it will derail the process of people talking about the constitution. That was not to be the case.
NO COUNTRY CAN HAVE SEVERAL GOVERNMENTS
It (rejected constitution) has gone (out to Parliament ). But this shows that there is parallelism. You cannot identify, you cannot really say, is there one government or are there more than one governments? There is no country that can be run by more than one government.
It is now in Somalia where everyone takes his small enclave and announces his independence and he starts fighting the rest of the people of Somalia. So with this now, it is rather clear that we are not one. And I said this to my colleagues who attended that meeting in J1 with me. I told them that you are the representatives of the people of South Sudan – you were elected and so these things should not divide you. You must stick to your party. The policy of your party is what you should stick to.
There is also another document said to be from the women leaders. No woman has written her name on it. Who are these women leaders who want to have their own constitution and we have talked at large about women representation in the government at all levels? I think we have talked about it. But it kept coming when people talk about 30%. I think it was me who said this: Why do we have in our constitution 25% (women representation?). When I said that we will raise the representation of the women to 30% it did not mean that that will be the ceiling of women representation because even the 25 percent is the minimum, the bottom line is that the representation of women should not be less than 25 percent, but they can go up to any level. They can take 40 percent, they can take 50 percent, and they can take 75 percent. But when people talk about 30 percent, I wonder what is this 30 percent? I also said that this 30 percent. we will get it into the permanent constitution, but I wonder whether the women will not complain later on when this thing becomes the ceiling.
The reason that kept the women down was the type of governance that we were experiencing in the whole Sudan. But the SPLM wants to change that situation.
When we went to the national government in 2005, and I appointed three women ministers in the national government, the GoNU president Bashir and his members of the NCP were on my neck, that now what you are doing is something that would give us problems. It was already giving them problems that their women took (liked) my statement – that we are bringing in women to the Council of Ministers. Their women were asking: where are we? They told me to drop the names of women.
I told them (that) these are members of my party and I am the chairman of my party. I have all the right to nominate any member of my party to any position that he or she can handle. It is up to you to appoint your women or not. It is all up to you. At the end they had to appoint women to the Council of Ministers. Was that not a victory? And now that we want to go further than this, I said let us consider giving women 30 percent. Okay if that needs really to be enshrined in the constitution, how many months are left for us to write the permanent constitution? Very few months.
