South Sudanese President Salva Kiir has replaced his vice president and rival Riek Machar following a sharp surge in violence between the government and opposition fighters in the five-year-old country.
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Deng’s swearing in is slated for Tuesday, after which the Cabinet will be reorganised.
The President had given Mr Machar a deadline of Saturday to return to Juba.
He said he has been loyal to all leaders since 1983 during the liberation struggle that resulted in the secession in 2011.
A former minister of mining, Deng Gai was a chief negotiator on behalf of Machar’s SPLM-IO group in the talks that led to last year’s deal.
Machar who returned to Juba with his forces on April 29th 2016 was sworn in as the FVP and the Transitional Government of National Unity (TGoNU) was formed agreeing to a peace deal signed in August 2015 seeking to end more than two years of devastating civil war.
“There is no point to come back to be assassinated”, Machar’s spokesman Goi Jooyul Yol told AFP on Friday, speaking from the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa.
“I am not sure much would change with Taban Deng as first vice president”. I would like to tell you that we have 28 members of the politico bureau of the central committee of SPLM-IO. A delegation of SPLM-IO presented the nomination to Kiir on Monday in the capital, Juba.
Civil war broke out when soldiers from Kiir’s Dinka ethnic group disarmed and targeted troops of Machar’s Nuer ethnic group. There was no plan or conniving of anybody against anybody to kill anybody. The ministries of mining and trade and industry have been left vacant.
He also said the agreement did not allow for temporary appointment of an acting First Vice President by the President, but instead Machar should have been the one to delegate one of his officials to act if need be.
President Kiir stressed that he is “waiting for a response within 48 hours so that we can establish contact and continue to promote peace”. “This is a clear violation of the Compromised Peace Agreement” read the letter. Yes, I’ve been saying words that are harsh to him and that are harsh to others, and I have been expressing my views.
“I think there are ways in which there could be a renegotiation of aspects of the peace agreement if there is an intention to implement it”, said Johnson.
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“We do not know the whereabouts of Machar up to now”.
