South Sudanese people are suffering under economic and climatic crises and political stasis. The last two years have involved a rapid deterioration of basic living conditions and safety for the majority. Popular engagement with national elections must be understood in the context of this economic crisis, pervasive violence and externally brokered government settlements. People want fundamental change in their everyday financial security and in their relationships with the state.

• National elections were scheduled for 22 December 2024, based on the terms of the 2018 Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan (R-ARCSS). On 13 September 2024, President Salva Kiir Mayardit postponed the elections for two years, extending the 2018 peace agreement to an expiry date of February 2027. President Kiir’s governing bloc will likely transition the 2018 Transitional Government of National Unity into new forms, either through continued use of presidential powers to make direct appointments from national to county levels, or potentially with the incorporation of new bargains struck under the Tumaini initiative in Kenya.
• The central problem is that there is little incentive for an electoral project under the existing governing system. Currently, South Sudan is governed via direct central appointment of dependent political factions down to county level, and funded via the outsourcing of taxation and rent collection to armed entrepreneurs. There has been no real investment in organizing an electoral process that would reform the government. At the same time, increasingly pervasive rent extraction is entrenching the interests of a proliferating range of armed actors, amid growing and often violent competition.
• The wider practical and legal issues with organizing elections are secondary to this core problem, although there are a range of such issues. Beyond resources and laws, there is no central political will for elections. This is why South Sudanese people (similar to international actors) simultaneously a) want elections and b) do not think they will happen any time soon. Still, national elections remain a limited opportunity for popular sway (or simply dissent) over this government in endless transition, even if people generally feel there will likely be more violence and widespread malpractice. Elections are a chance for people to make moral and practical demands on their government. The popular demand for national elections is a demand for at least some forms of better leadership and changes to a bloated government system.
• The key practical and organizational issues that must be addressed to make democratic action possible, include: specific forms of safety and public order; processes for fair candidacy; transparent constituency representation; and the practical problems of who will do the work and how. South Sudanese citizens already practice electoral democracy in associations, unions and an increasing number of customary courts, offering lessons learned based on these community-level elections. In particular, there are possibilities for a national election process to open up space for government reform, local democratic change and the incorporation of some methods of South Sudanese democracy that are already in practice.
  

Research team

Anna Adiyo Sebit, Machot Amuom Malou and Luga Aquila

Just Future is a 5-year programme led by an alliance of international and local NGOs and civil society organizations, funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands. The programme seeks to empower CSOs operating within fragile contexts to advocate for more accessible, responsive and accountable security and justice institutions, and more inclusive political governance and peace-making, from the local and national level, to the regional and international arena. This report was commissioned and funded by CORDAID, a humanitarian and development organization, working to end poverty and exclusion. The opinions expressed and the information contained in this document are the sole responsibility of the author.