Lam Akol calls for dialogue on key election issues

By Awan Achiek

The leader of the National Democratic Movement (NDM) Dr. Lam Akol Ajawin on Tuesday called for substantive dialogue among parties on key election issues to ensure credible, inclusive and violence-free poll.

“Our first demand is to have dialogue, we as political parties must sit down and discuss how to approach the elections process,” Akol told journalists in Juba.

He made these remarks after meeting with Jemma Nunu Kumba the Speaker of the Transitional National Legislative Assembly (TNLA).

Akol said that parties must engage in dialogue in order to hold inclusive election, adding that no party should be left to dominate others.

“We as NDM have it taken upon ourselves to seek consensus among our partners, the same way people sat in 2022,” he said.

“We must sit as parties to the peace agreement and decide on how to conduct the election and in this we get very clear outlook on what is to be done and how it would be done,” Akol revealed.

Akol returned from exile last year to contest the upcoming election slated for December 2024.

He said that parties to the peace agreement should come up with a joint decision on whether to hold elections or postpone them.

“It must be a joint decision by all of us to say we go ahead or we postpone or we delay, and these are things that can be decided only by the parties to the peace agreement,” Akol said.

 He said that the parties could invoke Article 8.4 of the peace agreement if they agree to either shorten or extend the transition period like when they did in 2022.

 “It is the same article we can now use to shorten the period if we want to have an election in 2023, it must be a joint decision between all of us,” Akol said.