Attachments
Summary
In a well-appointed room with the curtains drawn to shield it from the February heat in Juba, a veteran of both Khartoum and Juba politics described the complex constellation of outcomes open to South Sudan in the coming months. “We have become better at extinguishing fire”, he told the Panel, giving credit to a political process that has allowed former enemies to live and, to an extent, work, side by side in Juba. “But not at avoiding fire”.
South Sudan is grappling with a dilemma. Many South Sudanese are tired of a political process that has done little to improve lives beyond those of its immediate participants. Elections, currently scheduled for December 2024, are therefore seen as a popular means of delivering accountability for leaders widely perceived to have left many of their constituents behind. Despite some achievements, however, much of the Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in South Sudan is yet to be implemented and many fear, as a result, that their still-fragile country is not yet ready for elections.
It is not yet clear how this dilemma will be resolved. None of the available options command a consensus or effectively mitigate a potentially violent response from those left unsatisfied.
The continued prominence of President Salva Kiir Mayardit and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement beyond December 2024 is in little doubt, and both have continued to promise elections while pressing ahead with campaigns and mobilization events across the country.
Opposition groups, notably the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-Army in Opposition and its leader, First Vice-President Riek Machar, have more to lose from flawed elections. They have consequently stressed the need to follow the prescriptions of the peace agreement and to first complete the unification of the country’s disparate security forces, draft a permanent constitution, conduct a census and engage the country’s displaced populations.
Beyond this political calculus, numerous practical obstacles currently also stand in the way of credible elections.
The deployment of some unified forces marks an important step towards the implementation of security sector reforms, but recent clashes between the South Sudan People’s Defence Forces (SSPDF) and the Sudan People’s Liberation Army in Opposition (SPLA-IO), in violation of both the peace and ceasefire agreements, underscore its limitations. Insecurity, including land-related violence, persists across much of the country, resulting in deaths, displacement and serious human rights abuses. Ongoing recruitment and defections also continue to place pressure on reforms, with the Panel also corroborating the continuing recruitment of youth and children by both SSPDF and SPLA-IO forces.
The passage of election-related legislation and the recent reconstitution of the National Elections Commission, the Political Parties Council and the National Constitutional Review Commission are important achievements, but these critical bodies are almost entirely unfunded and lack the ability to operate effectively beyond Juba. A supplementary budget intended to partially fund their work is yet to be passed, with efforts to do so further complicated by a broader economic crisis.
In this context, there are no guarantees that elections will deliver on their promise. The risk that they will become a destabilizing event grows greater as elections draw nearer without clarity on what kind of contests will be held and what preparations will be in place. Substantial divisions exist not only across the signatories to the peace agreement, but also within them, as the incentives of leaders in Juba diverge from the expectations of subnational actors struggling for both survival and relevance.
Violence is often a prominent ingredient of South Sudanese politics, and many actors retain both the will and the means to challenge unsatisfactory political outcomes with force.
Perhaps the greatest threat of elections, however, is that they consume all political attention to the point of distracting entirely from the deep challenges that will continue to shape peace and security in South Sudan whether votes are cast in December 2024 or not.
Regional pressures, including the conflict in the Sudan, continue to exacerbate the humanitarian emergency in South Sudan. More than 580,000 returnees and refugees have now sought refuge in South Sudan, exacerbating catastrophic hunger. Around a third of the population of South Sudan is displaced and, as the lean season approaches, more than half of the population are projected to face crisis levels, or higher, of food insecurity.
This humanitarian crisis is further aggravated by an economic one. South Sudanese oil exports have been disrupted by the conflict in the Sudan, significantly reducing government revenues. Non-transparent off-budget government procurement continues to divert significant public funds away from salaries and services, while the pressures of servicing costly commercial debts are also compounding, even as the Panel has documented efforts by the Government to agree to the country’s largest ever oil-backed loan.
The coming months are a critical opportunity for the leaders of South Sudan to work together to manage diverging incentives and expectations before they lead to further instability.