So, South Sudan has once again pushed the pause button on its so-called “democratic process.” This time, the long-delayed national election that was supposed to happen in December 2024 has been shoved back two whole years. According to the presidency’s Facebook update, President Salva Kiir and his crew have generously decided to extend the transitional period until December 2026.
This postponement is the latest in a string of delays for a country that’s supposedly at peace since the 2018 agreement ended a brutal civil war that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives.
The truth is, the country is still teetering on the edge, with violence between rival communities erupting on a regular basis. Peace, South Sudan-style, seems to mean “we’re not killing each other as much as we used to.”
Initially, the idea was to have elections this December to finally elect a government to replace the current “transitional” one, headed by Kiir and his rival-turned-partner-in-peace, First Vice President Riek Machar. You may remember that Kiir and Machar’s forces were at each other’s throats during the civil war, but now they’re awkwardly sharing power, trying to act like everything’s just fine.
Kiir’s office assures us there’s a “need for additional time to complete essential tasks” before the polls. Sure, that sounds reasonable on the surface, except when you realize that these “essential tasks” seem to keep multiplying every time the election draws near. It’s almost like they don’t really want the elections to happen at all. Maybe because the last thing Kiir and Machar want is to give up their current positions of power? Just a thought.
