(Nairobi) South Sudan announced on Friday a new postponement, by two years, of the first elections in its young history, supposed to end the transition period provided for in the 2018 peace agreement.
President Salva Kiir “announced a two-year extension of the transition period as well as the postponement to December 22, 2026 of the elections, initially scheduled for December 2024, indicated on its Facebook page the government of this country independent since 2011.
The peace agreement that ended five years of a deadly civil war in 2018 (400,000 dead and millions displaced) established the principle of a government of national unity integrating the two rivals who set the country on fire and blood, Salva Kiir and Riek Machar, respectively as president and first vice-president.
The government’s mission was to implement the agreement and carry out a transition ending with elections. Its initial mandate was 30 months.
But South Sudan, a country of 12 million people among the poorest in the world, remains undermined by power struggles, corruption and local ethnic conflicts, and progress in key areas of the agreement (drafting a constitution, creating a unified army, etc.) remains slim.
The government has repeatedly pushed back the end of this “transition” period. The last extension set its deadline for February 2025, after elections in December 2024.