The National Democratic Movement (NDM) has plunged into one of the most dramatic internal crises in its short political life, with rival factions publicly firing, unfiring, and re-firing each other in a spectacle that has left even seasoned political observers struggling to keep score.
The chaos erupted when a splinter group within the party convened a press conference on Wednesday to announce the dismissal of party chairman Dr. Lam Akol Ajawin, claiming to represent the “highest decision-making organ” of the NDM.
The announcement was bold, final, and confidently delivered but the setting quickly undermined the message.
Rather than taking place at the party’s official headquarters, the meeting was held at the private residence of an individual previously dismissed from his own party within the SSOA and now accused by NDM of working in the service of its political detractors.
For the main party leadership, the venue alone was enough to raise alarms and eyebrows.
Within hours, NDM’s National Executive Committee issued a blistering rebuttal, accusing the splinter group of staging what amounted to political theatre.
The party rejected the legality of the announcement, arguing that no NDM organ made up of only three individuals has the authority to remove a party chairman.
According to the party’s Basic Rules, the power to discipline or remove the chairman rests solely with the National Delegates Congress (NDC), a body that had already been scheduled to convene in June 2026.
The leadership questioned why the accusers could not wait four months to present their alleged charges if they were genuine.
Instead, NDM suggested, impatience and opportunism had taken over.
The party also took aim at the splinter group’s frequent accusations of tribal monopolization of government positions by Dr. Lam Akol.
In a pointed counter-argument, the leadership asked how those making such claims managed to become Members of Parliament themselves if the system was so tribally closed.
The irony, NDM noted, was hard to miss.
Particular attention was directed at one of the figures seated at the high table during the press conference.
The party said he had lost his membership in the Transitional National Legislative Assembly in 2024, had largely stayed away from party activities since then, and only resurfaced when promises of future positions appeared to be on offer.
“He was dragged to the press conference,” the statement implied, more prop than power broker.
Beyond personalities, the party framed the fallout as a consequence of growing political frustration.
On 24 January 2026, NDM had publicly complained that positions allocated to it under the peace agreement were being systematically grabbed by the SPLM-IG, with some recommendations ignored for as long as 43 months.
As avenues to government appointments narrowed, the party argued, the splinter group concluded that NDM no longer offered a fast lane to power and began looking elsewhere.
The matter came to a head on 5 February 2026, when the National Executive Committee convened its extraordinary meeting No. 161.
After reviewing the press statement and accompanying photos, the committee ruled that the actions of the three NLC members violated Article 9 of the party’s Basic Rules.
In a twist that completed the political loop, the committee declared that by attempting to dismiss the chairman without mandate, the group had effectively dismissed themselves from the party.
Six members were expelled with immediate effect, including Ali Ramadhan Ubul, Mahjoub Biel Turuk, Peter Lomude Francis and three others.
For now, Dr. Lam Akol remains firmly in the chair, the splinter faction is out in the cold, and the NDM is left to pick up the pieces of a crisis that played out loudly and publicly.
As the dust settles, one thing is, in the NDM’s latest chapter, firing first did not mean winning it simply meant getting fired back.
