Hon. Africano Mande Gedima, Minister of Presidential Affairs - Courtesy of Office of the President

South Sudan’s multi-vice-president executive structure turned the country into a political “guinea pig” that strained national resources and stalled governance, according to Presidential Affairs Minister Hon. Africano Mande.

Speaking in an interview with Kenyan media, Hon. Mande declared that the Revitalised Transitional Government of National Unity (R-TGoNU) has outlived its purpose, noting that the country is now actively pivoting toward general elections.

Reflecting on the 2018 peace agreement structure, the minister explained that while the shared-leadership arrangement offered valuable political lessons, running an executive with competing interests created severe operational and financial friction.

“The state of the government at the moment is basically that we are in the mood of transitioning from what I would call a transition government to election,” Mande said. “I will say that perhaps the transitional government has already outlived its purpose because it was coined on the basis of a transition.”

The Structure of the Executive

The Minister pointed to the setup of the executive branch—one president and five vice presidents from different political parties—as the main cause of resource strains and delays.

“It’s unprecedented that you have a government with one president and about five vice presidents crafted from different political parties,” he said. “That posed a lot of challenges in terms of resources. The government was too heavy to move forward because of the different interests and different visions.”

Lessons from the Transition

Hon. Mande said the governance model offered a trial run for the country and observers across the region.

“We have been a guinea pig that has been used to test a model of government that has not been used perhaps in the region before,” Mande said. “It poses a lot of lessons to learn from, and I think it is a case study for political science students to look back and evaluate how arrangements of this kind function.”