In a long promised step to implement a 2018 peace deal, South Sudan President Salva Kiir has dissolved parliament. This is to be followed by the nomination of MPs from opposing sides. A quarter of the (to be expanded number of 550) MPs will be from the party of Dr Riek Machar, currently vice-president and Kiir’s former foe during the civil war. The move comes just ahead of a visit by U.S. Special Envoy for Sudan and South Sudan Donald Booth. The U.S. is concerned over the slow implementation of the agreement on resolving the civil conflict.
South Sudan won independence from Sudan in 2011 after decades of civil war. Violence erupted in 2013 after Kiir, an ethnic Dinka, sacked Vice President Machar, an ethnic Nuer. The two have signed several deals to end a war estimated to have killed more than 400,000 people. They finally formed a national unity government in 2020.
