
Press Release: Update on the Press Conference of the Legitimate FVP Dr. Riek Machar (18.08.2016)


“Mabior Garang, a spokesman for Riek Machar’s SPLM-In Opposition party, joins us live in our Studios to give us further information on the former vice President’s situation. Here are the questions…
Q1. Mabior… Do you know where doctor Riek Machar is and his current condition?
Q2. While refusing to return to Juba, until after the deployment of a buffer force, DR Machar had insisted on staying on in South Sudan. Why has he found it necessary to leave the country now? What is is his plan?
Q3. President Salva Kiir and his new First Vice President Taban Gai Deng, have insisted that there is now no role for Riek Machar in the Unity government and that the country can implement the peace deal without him. What’s Riek Machar’s view on this?” (CCTV Africa, 2016)

“Cord leader Raila Odinga has welcomed the joint parliamentary select committee’s recommendations, terming them the beginning of a journey to a free and fair poll next year, whose outcome will reflect the wishes of the electorate. Odinga has however proposed that president Uhuru Kenyatta consults with him in the nomination of new IEBC commissioners, just like he was involved in the appointment of the outgoing electoral body bosses, by former president Mwai Kibaki in the grand coalition government” (Kenya Citizen TV, 2016)
“Newly appointed South Sudan Vice President Taban Deng Gai on Wednesday warned his predecessor Dr Riek Machar that he will be stopped at all costs if he attempts to go on the offensive. Gai who was in Kenya to brief President Uhuru Kenyatta on the progress of implementing the peace agreement warned that President Salva Kiir’s government would not allow Machar to interfere with peace and security of South Sudan” (Capital FM Kenya, 2016)

While we see no need to chest-thump as the CORD negotiating team on IEBC reforms, CORD has achieved what we know is critical to delivering a free, fair and peaceful polls next year.
One; what Jubilee intransigence throughout this process has revealed to us is that the much hyped ‘numbers’ by Jubilee are nonexistent. The fear to have a credible electoral institution by Jubilee tells it all.
Having said that; our team has achieved one critical objective that we set to achieve which was, foremost, to have the current crop of IEBC commissioners to go.
We’ve also reduced the number from nine to seven and delineated their roles from those of the secretariat.
We’ve set modalities for getting a new set of commissioners in the most rigorous manner possible which, in our human estimation, should guarantee utmost credibility.
There are finer details to this that we’ll share in coming days.
My experience with Kenya’s democracy project so far is that it is work in progress. Today we give this, tomorrow we get that. It is give-and-take. And while often we wished we had all; that isn’t how it works in reality.
Two; the voter register will be forensically audited. While Jubilee and current IEBC didn’t want anything done on the voter register, and we were adamant the register had to be expunged and a new one instituted; the middle ground was to audit it and should there be ‘multitude of ghosts’ in it; that will automatically lead to a new one.
Three; from next year the country will go for electronic voting. This goes to voter identification, registration, ballot casting, votes transmission and and tallying. Should this system collapse, there shall be no reverting to manual: the election shall be repeated.
Four; we have anchored it in law that IEBC must provide, within 48hrs, all documents it used to declare any candidate a winner. Many of you who followed 2013 presidential petition knows why this is significant.
Finally, there are finer details of what our side has achieved which cannot be reduced to A FACEBOOK post – much as I wished I could – but I felt it was important to clarify that CORD has achieved much, much more; though not all.
In the end; the only way to get jubilee out of power is to VOTE them out of power. This is the next stage.

Kampala, 14 August – Uganda’s Chief of Defence Forces, General Katumba Wamala, has expressed confidence in Somalia’s stabilization efforts.
General Wamala described the African Union Mission in Somalia as one of the continent’s success stories, saying it actualises the African dream of having African solutions to African problems.
He was speaking in Kampala, Uganda, last week, where he officially closed a 4-day AU-UN Mandatory Media and Communication Trainer of Trainers (TOT) course. The course was attended by military and police public communication officers from the Troop and Police Contributing Countries to AMISOM, Somali National Army and Somali Police Force.
“We need to aggressively communicate where Somalia was before the war and where it is now. We need to aggressively communicate the positive developments taking place in Somalia” General Wamala challenged the media, during his address to participants at the TOT course.
The training was organized by United Nations Support Office in Somalia (UNSOS) Training Unit in-conjunction with AMISOM Public Information Unit through the AU-UN Information Support Team (AU-UN IST).
The aim of the TOT is to increase the pool of trainers for the media and communication component of the AU/UN Mandatory pre-deployment training.
Troop Contributing Countries (TCC’s) comprise Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, Djibouti and Burundi. Police Contributing Countries (PCC’s), on the other hand, consist of Kenya, Uganda, Sierra Leone, Nigeria and Ghana.