Dissident MP Henry Dilah Odwar has denounced the security bill introduced in parliament last month by supporters of President Salva Kiir while also reiterating that the bill failed to win the necessary number of votes to become law. 

South Sudan’s constitution requires a quorum of “more than half of the members” of parliament for votes on the final presentation of bills, meaning that at least 155 members must be present.

Less than a third of that number of MPs showed up for a vote on the National Security Service Bill, in spite of strong pressure from the presidency to pass the bill.

Kiir fired his legal advisor Telar Deng shortly after this legislative defeat.

The proposed bill would have required National Security Service officers to take an oath of loyalty before Salva Kiir personally. Odwar, who served in the ruling party until just days ago, on Saturday denounced the bill as ‘draconian.’

He said that the parliamentary leadership ignored critical voices within the party caucus and instead rushed forward with a vote on the bill.

The Speaker of the Assembly, keen to pass the bill before a planned recess, called for a show of hands on 8 October; the majority of ruling party MPs boycotted the vote, particularly the Equatorian caucus, which was almost entirely absent.

Photographs of the Assembly Hall at the time of the vote show it to be largely empty.

“There was no quorum. The number of people who passed such an important bill was 49. And when we complained as MPs it was brushed aside,” said Odwar, speaking at a press conference on Saturday in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

Odwar alleges that supporters of the bill resorted to intimidation in their efforts to pass the bill, explaining why none of the dissenting MPs voted ‘no’ to the bill but instead simply failed to show up for the vote.

He pointed out that the vote was taken by “show of hands” and not by secret ballot. He said this has become common practice: “Some of these legislations that have gone through, if it is very controversial they will always invoke the name of Salva Kiir… Show of hands is to show whether you are with us or not.”

Odwar compared the vote on the security bill to the controversial vote on SPLM party documents at the SPLM National Liberation Council meeting last year, immediately before the initial outbreak of violence on 15 December.  

“As a member of the National Liberation Council of the party I was there on the 14th, I was there on the 15th, and it was sheer intimidation – Makuei, Bashir [Gbandi] – a turnaround convert – where on earth do you think it is democratic enough to decide with a raise of hands?”

“And that’s what Kiir wanted – any choice to be made within the party you have to raise your hands… That’s how we are manipulated.”

File photo: National Security Service headquarters in Juba, South Sudan

Related:

Dossier: Reporting on the National Security Service Bill, 2014 (18 Oct.)

Hundreds of MPs absent during vote on Kiir’s security bill (8 Oct.)