South Sudan: Ex-Vice President Riek Machar to oppose President Salva Kiir for the leadership of SPLM
Less than a week after being sacked as South Sudan’s Vice President, Riek Machar announced his candidacy for the chairmanship of the ruling party (SPLM) in order to run for the presidential election in 2015, the first national election since independence. He will therefore challenge President Salva Kiir in the struggle for the leadership of SPLM.
The United States and the European Union have expressed their concern over the critical political situation in South Sudan but have called for calm and peace, a call that has been echoed by the former Vice President.
Riek Machar stated that the dismissal of the cabinet is the prerogative of the President as he has a constitutional mandate to dismiss and form a government and therefore the radical move should not be a reason for violence.
Nevertheless, the former Vice President has condemned President Kiir for his failure to appoint a new government thereby creating an unwarranted vacuum.
Kenya: ICC Updates
On Monday 29 July, 2013 ICC Chief Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda filed an appeal against the Court’s decision to exempt the Deputy President William Ruto from attending all the Court’s proceedings. She urged the Appeal Chamber of the ICC to nullify the previous decision of judges Chile Eboe-Osuji and Robert Fremr and to compel Mr. Ruto to attend all sessions of his trial.
ICC Prosecutor Bensouda based most of her reasons for the appeal on the dissenting ruling of Judge Olga Herraera. The previous decision was mostly based on the application of Article 64(6)(f) of the Rome Statue which allows the judges discretion to discard some requirements of the Statute.
However, in the notice of appeal Ms Bensouda considered Article 64(6)(f) as a “general rule” and she argued that “whatever discretion a Trial Chamber may have, it does not permit it to discard controlling statutory requirement or to substitute its own policy preferences for those of the State Parties”. In her opinion neither the rules of the ICC nor the provisions of the Rome Statute give the Trial Chamber a right to excuse an accused from attending substantially all of his trial. The decision of the Appeal Chamber will be made in due course.
In the meantime, the defence team of President Uhuru Kenyatta has until the 13 August, 2013 to file an application on the specific place that the opening of his trial should be conducted.
Zimbabwe: Update on the presidential election
The SADC chief observer to Zimbabwe and Tanzania’s foreign minister Bernard Membe expressed his concern about the voting procedure in Zimbabwe.
He noted with concern that the most important document – the voters’ register had not been released two days before the elections scheduled for 31st July 2013. Membe explained that the voters’ roll “has to be made available for the people to verify their names and for the people to know where they’re going to vote”.
The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) declared that they would take legal action against the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) on the matter.
In June the NGO Research and Advocacy Unit alleged that the voters’ roll contained around one million people who had either moved abroad, or were dead or aged over 100 years. The MDC has declared that this is part of President Robert Mugabe’s scheme to rig the elections.