South Sudan rebel leader Riek Machar plans to return to Juba in May: UN

Riek Machar is now contemplating to get back to Juba in May even if the parties did not finalize the implementation of the pre-transitional period measures. His returning is likely to be under a power-sharing deal that a UN envoy said offered the ‘best chance’ of ending the war.

Riek Machar had a face to face meeting with the United Nation envoy David Shearer at South Sudan’s rebel leader’s exiled home in Khartoum to discuss plans for a transitional government that will pave the way to elections under the terms of a peace plan signed in September.

“He told me that he is committed to coming back still at the end of May,” David Shearer told a news conference at the UN headquarters in the New York. He also highlighted that his return will mark a ‘critical juncture’ toward setting up the transitional government.

South Sudan will witness the first general elections for the head of state and legislators since the independence with the completion of a transitional period of 30 months. The SPLM-IO has to reshape his political party besides his participation in the national unity government. The peace agreement brokered by South Sudan reinstates Riek Machar as vice-president and is aimed at ending the brutal five-year war.