South Sudan’s former Vice President Riek Machar said on Friday he planned to become the frontrunner for the ruling SPLM party in elections in 2015, throwing down the gauntlet to President Salva Kiir who dismissed him three days ago.
Kiir touched off a power struggle in the African oil-producing country by firing Machar and his cabinet and placing under investigation his top Sudan negotiator, Pagan Amum, in the biggest shakeup since the South gained independence in 2011.
Analysts say the struggle risks undermining a consensus among tribes and militias leaders holding together the unruly country at a time of heightened tensions with Sudan over crucial oil flows.
In his first comments since his dismissal, Machar said he planned to head the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), which led the country to secession from Khartoum after fighting one of Africa’s longest civil wars.
“I have told my colleagues in the politburo that come the next elections in 2015, I would contest those elections,” Machar told reporters in the capital Juba.
He said he wanted to run for the sake of democracy. “I believe that this country must go democratic. If it is going to be united, it cannot tolerate one man’s rule. It cannot tolerate dictatorship. It cannot tolerate tyranny.”
His spokesman James Gatdet Dak clarified Machar would run for the SPLM chairmanship before the vote to pave his way to the presidency of the one-party state.
Machar said he accepted his sacking as vice president but accused Kiir of creating a political vacuum for not immediately appointing a new cabinet.
“We now have a vacuum and this has created apprehension,” added Machar, who said he was “telling people to remain calm”.
A government officials said Kiir was still consulting the party on a new cabinet probably to be formed by early next week.
Stability in South Sudan is key for crude producers from China, India and Malaysia operating in the country and east African neighbors Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda which got swamped with refugees during the civil war.
wirestory
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