President Salva Kiir speaks at a past function | Credit | Eye Radio

The Chairperson of the SPLM, President Salva Kiir, has warned members of the party from intimidating the members of other parties or the private citizens while they are conducting their work.

President Kiir told SPLM members to advocate on party policies and programs as a way of attracting membership rather than resorting to harassment or threats.

He was addressing members of the SPLM during the official opening of the SPLM house in Juba:

“Long ago during Nimeri regime, there was a party called Socialist Party, that party was very famous during one party system of Nimeri,

“I don’t want you to intimidate people because SSU as a party was very intimidating.

“For many of you who have seen Socialist Party, it was very intimidating; we should not be like that.

“We are people’s party and if we are people’s party, we must convince people to follow us like they followed us during the war.

“We didn’t force them to follow us; they followed us during the war because they were convinced about our programs – programs of liberation that was why we had that support.”

The SPLM is our opposition

President Kiir said that division within the ruling party is hampering the implementation of the promises it made during the 2010 elections.

“You must have a program as a ruling party, now that we don’t have a program, if I said let’s do this… people would say that it’s Salva Kiir’s program alone, because the new strategy of SPLM members is confrontation.

“We have no opposition; it’s the SPLM that is our opposition. If you go to the parliament, you will find out that SPLM members are always confronting one another, the same in the Executive and in the states.”