Reforming the SPLM: A requisite for peace and nation building

Transforming the ruling Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) is vital in achieving sustainable peace in South Sudan.

Transforming the ruling Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) is vital in achieving sustainable peace in South Sudan. The party reform process needs to go hand-in-hand with the peace process in order for a transitional arrangement to take root.

Transforming the SPLM entails ensuring that politics become demilitarised; party structures reach the grassroots; and decision-making rules and leadership succession processes are established.

The SPLM will need to neutralise the military legacy of being structured according to Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) seniority, demobilise private militias, and allow the SPLA to become a professional, depoliticised national army. The SPLM also needs to have a political programme and the organisational stability to take part in elections and in government; and have a civilian leadership that consults its members. 

About the author

Paula Cristina Roque is an expert on South Sudan and Angola, and is currently finishing her PhD on the SPLM and UNITA at Oxford University.
She was previously a senior researcher with the Conflict Prevention and Risk Analysis Division at the Institute for Security Studies.