Lessons on reconfiguring the federalism debate

Federalism remains elusive even when many proponents in favor ponder its application with varied interpretations of the same and different aspects of this wonderful idea of governance system.

Lessons on reconfiguring the federalism debate

By Opoka Christopher Arop

I recently read an article which was categorically against the idea of a federal system of government that accommodates the ethnic diversity of South Sudan. It was a painful experience because, I for one strongly believe in the virtues of discussion and debate. So here I voice my side of the approach that I think might attempt to better address the South Sudan question.

Our history shows that whatever name you call it; deconcentration, devolution or federalism; the South Sudanese people have since 1947 demanded one form or the other as a way of governance. When only four administrative positions out of a possible eight hundred were given to Southerners before independence later in 1956, the seeds for service delivery to the people at the grassroots were inevitably sown.

It is true that previous agreements in the Sudans such as the 1972 Addis Ababa Agreement, the 1998 Khartoum Peace Agreement and the 2005 CPA have all in their own ways attempted to fix the issue of service delivery, better equal representation and failed miserably. It is thus admissible that since we are still having this debate, services and power are still at the center and in Juba to be specific.

As you probably know, when we broke away from the Sudan, along with us came the burdens of their system of government. Along with it also came civil servants who were part of the centralised system of government in the north; and yet we all expected these technocrats to under-go an evolution of sorts and get reborn.

The effects of our divorce from the north is still bitter in the hearts of many South Sudanese, even though they may not mention or show it. These bitter individuals and groups have for decades known only one system of government, the centralised, autocratic, one-party system of rule. Thus when the magnitude of the forces against more liberal minded South Sudanese who now demand for reform, multi-party democracy, devolution or federalism; you will agree that, these silent opposition groups are formidable. And for the last four years or so, this group has stolen the President’s ears.

And so the real prognosis is not all that encouraging; everyone expects us to disintegrate like the former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia. And this has finally happened. Our path to disintegration has more tarmac than all the roads in Juba tallied.

I think the primary reason this has happened is that we were unable to design a system that could accommodate diversity adequately. The system is the federal democratic system. And so over the past sixty plus years, I think we have proved the skeptics right, we have proven that South Sudan is not here to stay. We have missed opportunities to forge a new basis for our existence, the basis of a federal system, of a democratic system, a system that accommodates the ethnic and religious diversity of the country adequately. So I think this has been the key failure of all the agreements combined.

One of the main challenges we ignored was how to manage our diversity. We did not look at innovative aspects of federalism that would significantly put emphasis on ethnic composition of our brand of federalism. In this failure we missed many opportunities. What impact has this had on our idea of national unity and on the sense of South Sudanese identity?

A rough estimate will put our different armed ethnic-based organized groups at more than fifty today and even more during the various liberation struggles. This is one of the reasons people should have addressed our likelihood to completely disintegrate. So the issue of identity in terms of ethnic identity and how it expressed itself in the political process, the issue of religious tolerance and equality, were the issues lowest in the minds of our people at that time and today. And so when the federal system or devolution of the central government was designed, it was mistakenly designed to make sure that these issues which were uppermost in people’s minds were least addressed. And that’s what government did.

As it happens, the various ethnic groups in South Sudan live in specific geographic locations, so there is a large element of coincidence between ethnic groups and regional geographic divisions. We should have made it possible in the constitution for people to be on top of their own local affairs, to manage their local affairs in an autonomous fashion, to use their own language, develop their own culture and to participate in the common federal political activities on an equal basis. This is what I will call “ethic federalism.”

And so the new Republic of South Sudan should have been based on the freely expressed will of its peoples to live together and work together. The country should have been an expression of the mixture of cultures, languages, religions �" a composite. And by now we would be creating, revitalizing the South Sudanese identity on a new basis, on a more diversified, on a more equitable basis for all of the component parts of the South Sudanese identity.

In terms of a mixed economy would South Sudan have prospered and moved away from its aid-dependent status? What the federal government would do is to set the national framework for development and that national framework for development would be articulated on the basis of consultation at all levels of government. And so we would have a common framework. Within that common framework the various regions would be free to devise their own development strategies.

The development strategies in various regions would be very different. If you take one of these regions, Juba, it is essentially a city state and so agriculture is not that important in Juba. On the other hand, nationally agriculture happens to be the driver of economic growth. And so in Juba the people would have to devise their own strategy that reflects their own specific circumstances. In the pastoralist areas �" in the Yirol, Pibor, Cueibet regions, for example �" the key issue is going to be how to promote and develop pastoralist agriculture. That’s quite different than the rest of the country because in the rest of the country we don’t have pastoralists.

You can’t have massive grassroots mobilization on the basis of a national uniform plan. It has to vary not only from region to region but also from village to village because the circumstances in each village are unique. So the national plan, the national framework, is just that; it is a framework on which basis every village will have to write its own story, but a story that will have to adapt into the national development program.

Would there be robust economic growth and development using this approach in this brand of federalism? I think the two are interlinked. The fact that we would have a system that would allow us to accommodate diversity, and accommodation of diversity has been an Achilles heel of South Sudan because it has exposed us to all kinds of instability and violence. This would have made it possible for us to concentrate on development, because we would have achieved relative peace, much more solid peace than we have had for centuries.

Ethiopia is a good case study for us to understand available variations of federalism that we want to adopt. Instead of all the discussions led by IGAD, I would have been much happier, had the Ethiopian government dictated discussion on federalism and adoption of such document as a blue-print for peace in our country.