South Sudan’s National Elections Commission on Saturday morning pushed the country’s first general elections to February 2027. Instead of holding the vote on December 22 as had been promised eight years after a peace deal was signed by President Salva Kiir and First Vice President Riek Machar, the elections will now be held on February 11, 2027 for the presidential and legislative polls. Voter registration will now be held in conjunction with these elections. The commission issued the revised calendar on social media shortly after dawn in Juba.
In a surprise move the National Elections Commission announced that South Sudan’s first free and fair general elections would now take place on February 11, 2027 instead of the December 22, 2026 date promised under the revived peace agreement signed by Salva Kiir and Riek Machar in 2018. The commission pointed to delays in compiling the voter register, an exercise that has proven slow and expensive, and to unresolved questions over boundaries, security and funding for a competitive vote.
The UN has expressed fear that holding the elections on December 22 could be a recipe for disaster as the various ethnic groups and political players would lock horns over results perceived to be skewed against them. Already, hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced by fighting in various parts of the country and the two leaders have yet to complete key aspects of the peace agreement including the unification of their military commands.
Many have pointed out that each previous date for elections has been missed and that in each case the transitional government is kept in place past its intended term. Opposition parties claim that Kiir’s circle are using the key word “logistics” as a smokescreen to keep power for as long as they like. The government’s argument is that a bad election would be worse than a late one and that the country is not yet ready for elections until the register, security and funds are in place.
For Washington, things elsewhere are taking up more of the diplomatic time of the US government than has been the case in recent years, among others the war between the US and Iran. While some time ago US mediation was crucial to the Juba process, this has been wearing off in recent years. As a result of humanitarian budget cuts aid is no longer flowing as it used to, and the international attention that once propped up the Juba process has moved on to other wars.
