Sudan Vision Daily News Paper Official Website - Kiir Candidacy for Presidency: Overconfidence or Constitutional Dismissal

By: Mona Al-Bashir
The Sudan People Liberation Movement (SPLM) decided earlier to nominate Silva Kiir, 1st Vice President of the Republic and President of the Government of South Sudan, to run for presidency in the upcoming elections next year.

After a meeting of SPLM Political Bureau in Juba, Yasir Arman, the Deputy Secretary General, said that SPLM will run the elections at the levels of states and republic presidency.
Candidacy of Silva Kiir is welcomed at the highest levels. Vice President Ali Osman Mohammad Taha said anyone has the right to be nominated for presidency. The Undersecretary for Foreign Affairs, Dr. Mutrif Sidig believes that there is no connection between the decision of SPLM to run Kiir for presidency and ICC crisis.
However, taking a deep look at the decision taken by SPLM on candidacy of Salva Kirr for presidency will reveal multi-faces other than the overt face of the confidence of the movement in its chairman. Pro-Garang group never felt comfortable till they isolated Salva from his supporters such as Telar and Aliyu and forced him to dismiss them from SPLM. Now, they are trying to trap him by candidacy for the presidency where he either wins and becomes the President of Sudan or fails and loses all his executive offices until he is re-elected by SPLM. General Abass Mohammed Al-Amin believes that re-election of Silva as chairman of SPLM is something that concerns the movement alone.
Some observers believe that those who have control over SPLM would never allow re-election of Salva Kiir as chairman of the movement again.
Despite the argument over the candidacy of Kiir for presidency of Sudan from SPLM's point of view, a perspective of a movement toward its chairman, not an ethnic or religious perspective, Salva Kiir is a Sudanese national and he has a right to run presidency. However, certain questions arise: has Kiir any chances to win elections? Both winning and failing presidential or parliamentary elections are possible. In case he wins, there will be no problem, because the public selection will be respected by all parties in accordance with the principles of democracy. However, if Kirr fails to win, a number of complications may appear, as some observers believe. Being the leader of SPLM and President of GoSS, Kiir is currently a highly respected figure in South Sudan. However, certainly this leadership will be affected and the people of South Sudan will have a negative impression of their president failing the elections. As a result, an unidentified leader from South Sudan affirmed that the majority of the people of South Sudan reject candidacy of their president. He depicted such a step as continuation of a series of conspiracies being plotted against Salva Kiir by some members of SPLM who intends to render him to fail the upcoming elections.
He said that he is not sure whether Kiir will accept candidacy or not, especially it was previously planned in the conferences of Rumbek and Yei where he was advised to decline to avoid the conspiracy led by the so-called pro-Garang group and communists who call for the project of New Sudan. He added that these projects aim to make instability in the country, because it only exists in Khartoum and mass media and never exists in South Sudan.
Some observers believe that Salva should retreat from this step. Dr. Ghazi Salah El-Deen, Advisor of the President of the Republic said that the timing of the decision on the candidacy of Kiir was inconvenient, however he added that Salva Kiir has the right to run for presidency.
Ghazi said that if Salva fails elections, he will lose twice and be outside the political formula. Thus, the institution would lose an experienced partner.
Ghazi said: 'I personally believe that the decision needs revision by SPLM'.
In conclusion, some political observers believe that although Kirr possesses wisdom, personal traits and qualifications to run presidency of the country, the northern sector of SPLM which suffers severe differences will adversely influence his popularity in the north, something not considered by SPLM or estimate the possibilities for its candidate to win elections or has he enough popularity in the north.
Finally, certain questions arise about the US support to this candidacy: are the American estimations built on tangible matters or mere assumptions!
Overconfidence or Constitutional Dismissal will remove Kiir from the political equation in both Northern and Southern Sudan.