In an unprecedented move on the 23rd of July 2013, South Sudan's President decided to be rid of his number two and dispose of him along with all the ministers and their number twos. He also let the tide in on the Secretary General of the ruling party, the SPLM. The savagery of South Sudan's political "Red Wedding" caught the international community and observers by surprise. At home, the demise of a rotten and much hated Executive was received well with sighs of relief and euphoria tinged with paralysing fear by urban populace and with much indifference in the rural areas.

Over the preceding months before his dismissal, the President's number two, Mr. Riek Machar, PhD had become a prickly shaft on the throne questioning and criticising his boss's handling of the country. Mr. Vice-President's long hibernated ambition - if indeed it has ever done so - had woken up from its dark slumber and in populist denunciations and beratings was driving a political dagger into his boss. Similarly, the Secretary General Mr. Pagan Amum, was also singing from the VP's hymn book and habouring a similar sin - that of coveting the throne. Ever a good communist, he decried the burden of dictatorship on plebs with increasing zeal to add a dagger to the President's backside. Pagan, a gifted orator and Dr. Riek, a fairly educated man left their boss with nothing but the Hiroshima Option. Not only did he nuke them, he had a special treatment for each - Stalin's Choice -  the party's investigative committees.

The dismissed government and party officials increasingly became vocal and on the 6th of December held a press conference where they issued a litany of charges against the government of Salva Kiir and forgot to focus on SPLM where the problem originated. Then on the 15th of December, hell's egg which had been laid in the SPLM and brooded in J1 and VP's circle finally hatched in the Ghiada (Old Army HQs), Bilpham (New Army HQs), Juba suburbs of Munuki and 107 (Mia wu Saba) and shortly thereafter in Bor, Akobo, Bentiu, Malakal and Nasir. So what happened? How did things revert back to the apocalyptic days of 1991 so "suddenly?" In the next few posts I will examine various aspects of South Sudanese politics starting with the inherently flawed ruling party.

In November 2012, I wrote a response on Facebook to some discussion which was later on published as an article on the New Sudan Vision albeit unrefined. A refined version shall be the next post as a background.