Jemma Nunu Kumba, the Speaker of the National Parliament during innaguartion of parliament by President Salva Kiir on Wednesday, April 3, 2024 - Credit: Office of the President

The Speaker of Parliament Jemma Nunu Kumba calls on the transitional government to come up with a clear roadmap on implementing all remaining peace provisions to ensure no further postponement of elections.

On Friday, a united legislature unanimously endorsed a memo on the postponement of South Sudan’s first-ever elections and the two-year extension of the transitional period in a day-long extraordinary sitting.

The memo was tabled after the presidency reached a consensus on the decision reportedly based on recommendations of electoral and security sector institutions.

The memo was quickly endorsed by the Council of Ministers in an emergency meeting on 14th September, and a similar greenlight was given by peace monitoring body R-JMEC amid concerns from diplomatic missions.

Presidential Adviser Tut Gatluak said the two-year extension will ensure that critical remaining protocols in R-ARCSS, such as the permanent constitution process, census, and the registration of political parties, are ironed out.

During the sitting on Thursday Justice Minister Ruben Madol presented the memo amending the transitional constitution to incorporate the unity government extension.

Following deliberations on the resolutions of the cabinet and R-JMEC, lawmakers consented to the memo and adopted the report of the High-Level Standing Committee on the implementation of the roadmap.

Speaker Jemma Nunu Kumba urged the transitional government to put the two years to good use by cultivating political will to implement pending tasks in the 2018 peace deal.

“It is important that as we extend, we must also come up with a very clear roadmap immediately as to how we are going to spend these 24 months, and this must be supported by a budget,” Nunu said in his closing statement.

“We really should focus on implementing the agreement especially the constitutional making process, which we need to finalize because this is one of the key issues that have been considered, and then the security sector reforms and so on.”

“This is very important, and as a legislative body, I would like to urge the executive and all those stakeholders to the peace agreement to really make sure that these 24 months are put to a very effective use.”

On September 14, Western diplomatic missions in South Sudan including the embassies of UK, US, Norway, EU, Canada, France, Germany, and the Netherlands have voiced their disappointment over the two-year extension of the transitional government.

In a press statement, the diplomatic missions pointed out that the extension highlights the transitional government’s failure to implement the 2018 peace agreement despite previous promises made in the launch of peace roadmap in 2022.

The statement further said timely elections are essential for strengthening stability, democracy, and sustainable development, and the government is accountable to the people of South Sudan for this choice.