The Other Political Parties (OPP) – a party to the 2018 peace deal – is causing delays in the formation of state legislative assemblies, a senior member of the grouping said.

South Sudan still does not have state legislative assemblies despite the formation of the transitional government in early 2020. Also, critical aspects of the peace deal such as security arrangements, transitional justice, and institutional reforms are behind schedule or completely frozen.

Kornelio Kon Ngu, the leader of the National Alliance of Political Parties and a leading member of the OPP, told Radio Tamazuj on Friday that the OPP is divided over its nominees to the state legislative assemblies.

“One of our leading members, who is the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Peter Mayen Majongdit, has not reached an agreement with us over the names of nominees to the state assemblies. We have already nominated our members and the list is now before the president. Majongdit is supposed to nominate two members of his choice in each state. But he failed to present these names. So the presidency says they cannot announce the state MPs because the names are incomplete,” Kon said.

He added, “So the delay is mainly from Majongdit. If he agrees and nominates his members, the names of the state MPs would be announced. If he is not satisfied with the number of seats allocated to him, let him come to us so that we can sit and discuss, but he does not want to meet us.”

Calls to Minister Peter Mayen Majongdit went unanswered.

When contacted, Michael Makuei Lueth, the Minister of Information and a leading member of President Salva Kiir’s SPLM party said:” the state legislative assemblies have not been announced due to some delays from the other parties.”

For his part, Puok Both Baluang, a spokesperson for Riek Machar’s SPLM-IO said they had submitted the list of their nominees to the state legislative assemblies. “We are now waiting for the other parties which are the ones delaying the process,” he said.