South Sudan Leaders Hold Talks On Election ‘Feasibility’
South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir held talks with political leaders to discuss the feasibility of holding long-delayed elections due to take place in December, his office said, as the United Nations again warned on Wednesday that time was running out.
The world’s youngest country has yet to go to the polls, a full 13 years after its hard-fought independence from Sudan, to the frustration of its people and the international community.
“The presidency, along with the leaders of major political parties, has resolved to seek technical advice from the electoral institutions on the feasibility of conducting upcoming elections,” Kiir’s office said in a Facebook post late Tuesday.
The meeting assessed the status of the faltering implementation of a 2018 peace agreement to end a bloody five-year civil war between forces loyal to Kiir and his arch-rival and now Deputy President Riek Machar.
Cabinet Affairs Minister Martin Elia Lomuro said the review was “aimed at providing a realistic timetable for political leaders to agree upon for the elections”.
The 2018 deal paved the way for a power-sharing government and laid out a roadmap for political transition and elections.
But in August 2022, South Sudan’s leaders agreed to extend the transitional period for another 24 months, to February 2025, and elections have been tentatively set for December 22 this year.
However, key tenets of the agreement are still incomplete, including the creation of a national constitution and the unification of Kiir and Machar’s rival forces.
Whether elections take place could also hinge on the outcome of peace talks in Nairobi between the South Sudanese government and holdout rebel groups that did not sign up to the 2018 pact.
The drawn-out consultation on the transition process “makes it difficult to treat 22 December as a definitive trigger in isolation from other critical factors”, Nicholas Haysom, the UN mission chief in South Sudan, said on Wednesday.
“Be that as it may, time is running out,” he told a UN Security Council meeting.
