Who’s who of the SPLM-Juba faction: Riek Gai Kok
SPLM, the ruling party of South Sudan, has fractured since the start of a civil war in December 2013. The faction of the party based in Juba remains under the leadership of President Salva Kiir.
The SPLM-Juba faction controls the cabinet, the presidency, a remnant of the SPLA, and several governorships. In a series of articles, Radio Tamazuj profiles some key party members who have remained loyal to Salva Kiir since the start of the crisis.
Factbox: Riek Gai Kok
Riek Gai Kok is a South Sudanese politician and the current minister of health. He has held a number of key administrative and political positions in the former Sudan, including in the National Congress Party, which continues to rule in north Sudan.
Gai is said by some to come from the Chieng Dak section of the Jikany Nuer, originally from Maiwut County, Upper Nile State, though others consider him a Lou Nuer from Akobo County in Jonglei State.
He was part of a small group of South Sudanese who went to Egypt on a government scholarship to study pharmacology at Alexandria University, from 1977 to 1981, after which he served as chief pharmacist in Malakal hospital from 1983 to 1985.
He later got another scholarship to study for a Master of Science in pharmacology at Strathclyde University in Scotland, the United Kingdom from 1985 to 1986.
Gai returned to Sudan again where he worked as a pharmacist in Khartoum before joining the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) in around 1989, undergoing military orientation training from which he graduated in 1990 at the SPLA institute for military, political and ideological studies in Bonga, Ethiopia.
From 1990 to 1992 he served the rebel group by coordinating medical supplies. When the SPLM split in 1991 he initially remained loyal to the founding leader John Garang, before defecting in 1992 with Commander William Nyuon Bany and joining the Nasir faction under the overall command of Riek Machar.
He was subsequently appointed coordinator of the Relief Association of South Sudan, a humanitarian wing of the Nasir faction, running it from 1992 to 1994, before taking over as its executive director at the end of 1994 until 1997.
In the late 1990s until about 2001 he served as governor of Jonglei State, as well as spokesperson of the South Sudan Independence Movement/Army (SSIM/A) under the leadership of Riek Machar. Thereafter he was appointed Minister of Animal Resources and Fisheries in the national government in Khartoum, a position he held from 2001 to 2003.
He then became president of a coordinating council of all ten states of Southern Sudan until 2005. This appointment followed the re-defection of his predecessor, Riek Machar, who decided in 2002 to abandon this position and rejoin the SPLM, three years before the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement which ended the north-south civil war.
After the peace agreement, Gai represented the Akobo area in the Sudanese parliament from 2005 to 2007, headed the NCP Southern Sector, and was a presidential advisor to Omar al-Bashir from 2005 to 2011.
On July 7, 2011, two days before the independence of South Sudan, Kok and other Southern politicians from the National Congress party held a press conference in Juba declaring their defection from NCP to SPLM.
Riek Gai is married with children.
More in this series:
Who’s who of the SPLM-Juba faction: Simon Kun Puoc
Who’s who of the SPLM-Juba faction: Nhial Deng Nhial
Who’s who of the SPLM-Juba faction: Kuol Manyang Juuk
Who’s who of the SPLM-Juba faction: Kuel Aguer Kuel
Who’s who of the SPLM-Juba faction: Aleu Ayieny Aleu
Who’s who of the SPLM-Juba faction: James Wani Igga