Why the message of hope is vital for the 2018 elections?
4 min readPlainly Speaking: Why the message of hope is vital for the 2018 elections?
Mading Abraham Majur, Kampala, Uganda
November 13, 2015 (SSB) — The peace prevailing in South Sudan today is modest yet particularly significant, it demonstrates that world peace is no mantra but a realistic prospect, so long as nations put up a unified front against extreme lawlessness wherever the outbreak.
Normalcy has not returned to South Sudan yet, but that semblance of it there is the fruit of persistence by IGAD, acting in concert with global allies legitimate concerns linger about commitment to the accord signed in August 2015. There have been sporadic violations in the aftermath of each one side has pointed an accusing finger at the other.
Regardless, if global stakeholders remain steadfast in their own mission, then President Salva Kiir and Dr. Riek Machar will honour their respective ends of the bargain or face consequences of belligerence, South Sudan is a young nation. The only way to safeguard it future is by ensuring that governance is based on sound democratic principles and the rule of law.
Individual leaders who deliberately set communities against one another should bear full responsibility for the catastrophe that ensure after. It is about two years to the aborted elections now to take place in 2018, because of our turbulent history; leaders tend to cause apprehension, in the past as the strong for self rule commenced wars amongst ourselves have dragged the young nation into anarchy and untold doom, death and destruction.
So the 2018 elections elicit genuine questions that linger in the minds of most South Sudanese, investors, donors and other stakeholders for instance, if the elections are held in 2018 and the incumbent who is a military man, is defeated will he pack and retire quietly? With the cabal of loyalists who have accumulated wealth out of their ingenuity or even primitively feel safe enough in the hands of the next government?
If the opposition lose in what appears like an unfair contest, will they wish to challenge and avenge the robbery? Will their contusion be pacific or will it be a call for another doom rebellion again? And how will the winner response? What will all these means for business, investment, human rights and governance in general?
My sense is that those to stand for presidency will have to be clear on assurances of a peaceful aftermath the following the elections. The ones with a positive and clear message on the issue will have an advantage in the quest to capture the mind of South Sudanese to get goodwill and financial support from business, investors plus the international community.
One of the big setbacks for the message of such violence in South Sudan today is the low return on this investment, and therefore many of the South Sudanese are now wallowing in poverty. Most parts of the country are not fairing any better, besides losing their children and being displaced from their land into camps the fertile land/gardens given away to bushes or fighting grounds.
The pride that comes with self substance guaranteed by what one has accumulated materially over time vanished with the wars. Therefore, people of South Sudan have hope because of what they have seen in the past, that- as Ngugi Wathiong’o put it in his novel petals of blood-“there is no night so long that it shall not end in the light of day”. So they work quietly as they wait for that time and day.
The author can be reached via majur20155@gmail.com
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