Dr Luka Biong Deng, Managing Director of the Sudd Institute - Courtesy

The Managing Director of Sudd Institute Dr. Luka Biong has suggested a National Elections Campaign to advance what he terms as a national agenda for ending a cycle of election postponements.

Dr. Biong proposed that the task be given to the 13 other South Sudanese members representing non-political stakeholders, of the Reconstituted Joint Monitoring and Evaluation Commission (R-JMEC), with support from regional guarantors and international partners.

Dr Biong said the function of the campaign should be to prepare and support the adoption of legislation to prevent the postponement of elections by the R-TGoNU in 2026.

“The 13 members representing other South Sudanese stakeholders could initiate a “National Elections Campaign” to advance a national agenda for ending this cycle of postponement of elections,” he said.

“The campaign could recommit the R-TGoNU to the peace initiative recently launched by President Salva Kiir, culminating in the Tumaini Peace Initiative.”

South Sudan has never held elections and has postponed the democratic exercise three times in the past 10 years; first in 2015, 2022, and most recently in 2024.

Dr. Biong said that the technical prerequisites for holding the elections are unlikely to be met even within the additional two years, citing previous failures to implement key provisions of the agreement.

He warned that if conditions for the conduct of elections in December 2026 are not met, the transitional government will again pursue the same process of extending its tenure and postponing elections.

This, according to him, would represent the utter failure of the R-TGoNU to implement the R-ARCSS, rendering it not only very unpopular but also indefensible.

He also said any failure to meet conditions for credible elections would perpetuate and underline what he terms as the fragility trap facing South Sudan under the transitional government.

Dr. Biong stressed that “now is the time to set South Sudan on a different path toward democratic transition.”

To achieve this he said, South Sudan needs to complete a population census before the elections, which the chairperson of the National Bureau of Statistics has estimated will take 16 months.

“Now is the time to set South Sudan on a different path toward democratic transition. South Sudan can only escape from the “state capability trap” and political deadlock by creating a new political infrastructure for conducting regionally and internationally monitored free and fair elections.”

The policy and political analyst said the Tumaini Initiative has the potential to resuscitate the implementation of the R-ARCSS and garner the much-needed support of the South Sudanese people and the international community.