Photo: Collected
South Sudan has again changed the date of the presidential and parliamentary elections that had been set for 22 December this year. The vote, the first in the country’s history, will now be held on 11 February next year.
The country’s election commission announced the new date on Saturday but said nothing about why the vote was postponed.
South Sudan, the world’s youngest nation, gained independence from Sudan in 2011. At least four lakh people died in the civil war there from 2013 to 2018. Although the 2018 peace deal ended the war, violence and political instability have persisted. Since the vote was planned for 2022, it has been postponed at least three times.
Last September President Salva Kiir dissolved the transitional unity government and formed a caretaker administration. This opened the way to move towards elections without a permanent constitution or a national census. Analysts warn, however, that this has weakened the power-sharing structure and further concentrated power in Kiir’s hands.
In recent months, deadly clashes have also increased between Kiir’s government forces and supporters of detained former vice-president Riek Machar.
Election commission chairman Gabriel Bol Deng said voter registration will run from 14 to 28 November. For this, 3,161 registration centres have been set up across the country and more than 22 thousand staff appointed.
According to the World Bank, 90 per cent of South Sudan’s roughly 1.5 crore people have no state-recognised identity documents. To register as voters, their identities will be confirmed through local leaders and they will be given special identity cards.
Background
According to a November 2024 report by the UN Office at Geneva, the country’s parties announced in September 2024 that the elections would be postponed to December 2026; under the peace deal the transitional period was extended by two more years to February 2027.
Source: Al Jazeera
Sources
Background sources: UN Geneva, November 2024
