15 June 2011
Yambio — Western Equatoria’s former chairperson of the North Sudan’s ruling National Congress Party (NCP) on Wednesday joined South Sudan’s ruling Sudan’s Peoples Liberation Movement (SPLM).
Awad Kisanga, who is serving as the Western Equatoria state minister of parliament told an impromptu press conference held at the SPLM state secretariat that his decision, coming just 24 days before the south declares independence, was in the national interests of fellow southerners and Western Equatoria in particular
The move comes more than one month when Kisanga and other senior NCP figures quit and closed their offices in Western Equatoria.
Speaking during the occasion Kisanga, revealed that he has served in the NCP for 25 years and had “decided to join brothers and sisters in the south”.
South Sudan is scheduled to declare its independence on 9 July 2011.
“Since Southerners have voted for the total freedom this implies that we, the sons and daughters, are to join hands together for to serve this new nation to come and therefore, I have willingly joined the SPLM,” announced Kisanga.
Kisanga called on his former colleagues of NCP to join any party in South Sudan. On 12 March 2011, South Sudan-based NCP members declared, in front of the leaders of NCP in Khartoum, that they were leaving the NCP and moving to the South to work towards building the new independent nation of South Sudan.
SPLM state secretary, Manase Doboi congratulated Awad Kisanga for what he termed as a “brave and positive decision,” adding that the “SPLM warmly welcomes their new member.”
Manase stressed that “the SPLM party has no segregation of who joins now and before.”
He said that the SPLM is for everybody working for the interest of the people of South Sudan and the marginalized people and that is why the SPLM is in both North and South Sudan.
The SPLM northern sector will remain as a party after the South secedes as it has a large following in Blue Nile and South Kordofan, where many joined the SPLM’s fight against Khartoum. In last year’s election SPLM candidate Malik Agar became the only non-NCP governor in north Sudan.
Kisanga’s wife, Gloria Philemon Baime applauded her husband for taking the decision of joining his brothers and sisters in SPLM party. She explained that she had been a member of the SPLM while her husband had been a member of the NCP, but that this had not been a source of conflict.
Baime served as a Member of Parliament in the appointed assembly before the 2010 elections.
AllAfrica – All the Time
Taken from:
Former Head of NCP Joins SPLM