Allow me to give my thoughts on how SPLM can be revitalized and made more vibrant.
I begin by congratulating Vice-President Dr Bol Mel for his recent rise in South Sudan’s political realm. We deeply appreciate his political strides and would like to remind him that he has been entrusted with our message of hope, with the firm belief that his foremost objective will be to preserve our unity as a nation, not as tribes.
Allow me to also point out that SPLM needs Peter Lam Both Dengmore than he needs the party in these perilous times. The current political crisis is hard to manage. For us to contain this menace, we need to revisit our past decisions to see where we made unnecessary and detrimental reshuffling in SPLM and the country at large. For instance, the removal of Deng as the secretary.
I believe if Deng were the SPLM secretary when the current crisis started, peace mobilization would have been easier and the loss of lives would have been prevented. To be specific, the deaths of the SSPDF soldiers, their White Army counterparts, and the Nuer civilians would have been prevented since all the parties would have listened to him.
Robin Sharma once said that “the brave do not run but eat their fear before it eats them”. Bearing that in mind, I believe Deng is a brave man who can eat his fear before the fear eats him in the political abyss we are in.
What do I mean? During Deng’s tenure in SPLM, he sought to bring all South Sudanese on board and remain united. He employed cutting-edge political strategies to resell SPLM across South Sudan. I expected that to be used in evaluating his performance. Instead, the country twisted this into “the hostile and the friendly”, to orchestrate his removal.
During his tenure, Deng:
- Mobilized and raised the SPLM support in Upper Nile from 10% to 67%.
- Created a cozy relationship between the SPLM party and the common citizens across the nation. This bond had been loose for so long and it is what makes the party survive all the political waves.
- Brought the South Sudanese across the political divides together and forged ways for the national development agenda.
- Made himself accessible to all the party cadres regardless of their socioeconomic, physical, and political status.
- Tried to capacitate the party by sourcing trainings in line with the principle of empowering and incubating leaders for the present and future generations.
By highlighting what I call Deng’s Big5, it is within my belief that it is only he who can endear the party to the majority. Deng has a ton of potential that leaped frog the party from the lowest percentile in the Upper Nile region to the highest one with an agile pace. There is a need to make him the party secretary general again or give him a position equal to that portfolio for the political equilibrium in South Sudan.
Deng worked for the party exceptionally. I think he was sacrificed because of his competence and the deeply entrenched political complacency.
The author, Tom Gatdel Malou, is a political and environmental activist and former President of the South Sudanese Students’ Association in Kenya.
The views expressed in ‘opinion’ articles published by Radio Tamazuj are solely those of the writer. The veracity of any claims made is the responsibility of the author, not Radio Tamazuj.