Tensions surge among ex-rebels:

Africa

Tensions surfaced Saturday within South Sudan’s former rebel movement over a minister seen as a rival to vice president Riek Machar.

Machar declared he had fired the minister — a position that appeared to have the backing of the SPLM/A (IO), a former rebel movement that has joined in a fragile unity government.

But in a twist to the strife-torn country’s complex politics, around 100 senior members of the SPLM/A (IO) then announced they backed the minister.

The central figure is Mining Minister Taban Deng Gai, who the dissenters said will act as interim vice president in Machar’s absence.

“The leadership has nominated Taban Deng Gai to act as the first vice-president of the Republic of South Sudan,” Ezekiel Lol Gatkuoth, head of external affairs for the SPLM-IO, told the press after a meeting at a hotel in Juba.

But speaking to journalists following his nomination, Gai insisted he would step aside once Machar returned. (AFP)

Gai