[From left to right] Dr Riek Machar, President Yoweri Museveni, President Omar Al Bashir, President Salva Kiir, during a face-to-face meeting in Khartoum on June 24 2018 -Photo credit: Unknown

The Khartoum Mediators have presented to the peace parties a draft agreement on responsibility sharing including a return to the 21 colonial districts.

The 4 -page document from the Sudanese Mediation Team attempts to reconcile different positions of stakeholders on the structure of the presidency, cabinet, national legislature and number of states.

On the Presidency, the draft proposal places the incumbent President Salva Kiir Mayardit as President of South Sudan, and Dr Riak Machar to assume the office of the 1st vice President during the Transitional Period.

For the position of Vice President, the draft proposal indicates that the incumbent TGoNU shall nominate an individual for the post, while other parties and entities that include SSOA, FDs and OPP, as a bloc shall select the third vice president to serve during the transitional period.

The position of either the vice president or the third vice president shall be taken by a woman.

The first vice President, vice president, and third vice president shall oversee the cabinet clusters of governance, economy and service delivery.

On the revitalized Transitional Government of National Unity, there has been a reduction in the number of ministries from the earlier proposal of 42 to 30 and deputy ministers from 15 to 9.

From this, the draft agreement proposes the incumbent TGoNU to have 17 ministers, the SPLM/IO shall have 8 ministers, SSOA with 2 ministers and other political parties with 1 minister.

In the proposed document, there shall be nine deputy ministers as specified in the 2015 peace agreement plus an additional deputy minister in the ministry of Gender, Child and social welfare.

From this, four deputy ministers have been allocated to the incumbent TGoNU, 2 for the SPLM/IO, one for SSOA, one for FDs and one deputy minister for the other political parties.

The draft agreement on responsibility sharing further states that no fewer than 3 of the deputy ministers shall be women, and that no other ministers or deputies shall be appointed during transitional period.

The draft agreement also proposes the Council of states to be composed of 52 seats allocated to the parties instead of the current 50.

On the number of states, the draft agreement proposes an adoption of the old 21 districts of Southern Sudan as the temporary states until the final decision on the number of states and boundaries of the states is made by the Inclusive boundaries Commission (IBC).

The members of the Inclusive boundaries Commission shall be appointed by the President in agreement with the three Vice Presidents, and recommendations of the IBC shall be taken in to account during the permanent constitution making process.

On the Transitional National Legislature, the Khartoum Mediation team proposed that both the current TNLA and the council of states shall be resolved on expiry of its term in August 2018.

It also proposed that the TNL be composed of 440 members with the incumbent TGoNU getting 266 seats, 106 for the SPLM/IO, 46 for SSOA, 3 for OPP and 2 seats for the FDs.

The parties are expected to study the proposal and then submit their positions to the mediation team.