When was the Last General Election Held in South Sudan?

By Malith Alier, Kalgoorlie, Australia

Saturday, September 04, 2021 (PW) — Yes, we have the country. haven’t we? Was this the only thing to justify the sacrifice of over two million souls? Was this land not there before us? What was this the rulers of Sudan doing that necessitated war? The questions are too many but the answers are fewer especially from those in-charge. For those who are in power will be ashamed to give tangible answers to the above questions. 

A Kenyan Journalist, Mr. Jeff Koinange asked the liberators as a group whether they can beat their chests after running down the country they liberated for 16 years. The answer returned a shocker; they are not proud of the liberation!

To the citizens, our saviour – the SPLM, did not lose direction, it just sleep-walked backwards in an uglyway. Whether this was as a result of loss of direction or else, nobody but the SPLM can tell. We are now 16 years down the line after achieving our goal – autonomy followed by separation. However, a lot of things have gone off the rail, officialising the current mess.

The advent of the Red Card Movement, the People’s Coalition for Civil Action, PCCA, Concerned Citizens of South Sudan among other activist organisations seems to have caused a significant panic in the ranks of the ruling party, the SPLM. The SPLM is reacting badly to the awakening of the South Sudanese people: it is deploying security forces to crack down on activists who are agitating for people’s rights the same way the SPLA, albeit in a different method, did for 21 years in the Sudan. 

The SPLM government is closing down radio stations for no apparent reasons other than perceived filmsy accusations of supporting the would-be demonstrations against misrule and war. The National Security, in an NCP style, has been unleashed and authorised to terrorise civilians for simply losing faith in the ruling party and its shenanigans.

It’s not surprising that the very government that have been avoiding elections for years has the audacity to tell those it calls “regime change advocates” to wait for elections. When was the first election held in South Sudan? The last election, as a matter of fact, was held back in 2010 more than eleven years agowhen Sudan was not partitioned. 

One of the reasons the SPLM/A took up arms was freedom and democracy. The SPLM/A rightly believed that freedom for Southerners was non-existent in the united Sudan. That the regime was dominated by a clique in Khartoum to exclusion of regions including the south. The south was justified to fight two consecutive wars to either reform the system or secede from the dross.

Regular national elections are an indication of functional democracy. People are allowed to freely choose their leaders in free and fair franchise as is the case with truly democratic nations of the world.War does not justify denial of the right to vote. The Sudan we seceded from held national elections amid war in 1983, 1996 and 2000! Make your research.Amid Anya Nya war years, Sudan did not disappoint. It held regular elections in 1958, 1965, 1968, 1974 and 1978.

The people’s right to information was assailed by the closure of Internet by this regime we called democratic. The national networks were arbitrarily switched off for the last two days of August to nib the possible mobilisation in the bud. Omar Bashir, the Sudanese dictator who ruled the country for 30 years, did the same before or during his last days in office.

He even declared that the Internet does not change governments. He was proven false by Sudanese masses. It is not only Internet that coalesce the masses but issues at hand the very government failed to address.

Elections in South Sudan have so far become elusive for people who are yearning for meaningful change. The first ever elections to be held in South Sudan were slated for 2015 as per 2011 constitution. But before the preparations began, the SPLM commenced quarrels withing itself. The result of that Nyakuron 14 December 2013 quarrel gave birth to the ignominious 2013 coup or whatever you may call it. Then an agreement to end the war was signed in 2015. That agreement was to run for three years after which elections would take place.

In August 2016, the agreement unravelled and the country went to square one. Had that agreement held, the probable elections would have taken place in 2018. The same year, 2018, another agreement was struck for the second time. That agreement specified that the elections to be held in 2022. Alas, the election extenders and postponers came for the umpteenth time to decree that the elections must be extended for their own benefits. 

The question is, how can the same people who have been dodging plebiscites for ten years come around to ask tired citizens to wait for an exercise that is not forthcoming?

This government must be dishonest from the top to the bottom or simply rotten to the core as Prof.Nyamlel Wakosan once said. It simply lacks moral authority to lecture the patient South Sudanese about unreachable pie from the blues.

For ten years the SPLM led government violated the constitution clause about elections front, back and centre. Basically, it has replaced elections with decrees. State governors had been decreed in and out contrary to the constitutional stipulation for popular elections.

President Kiir is happiest president after the 2018 agreement. He tenuously extended his rampant decrees of appointment and dismissal of government officials to even Payam and Boma administrations. Therefore, how dare the government brazenly pull the hood over people that they should wait for elections?

The author, Malith Alier, is a concerned South Sudanese Australian public intellectual and political commentator who can be reached via his email address: alierjokdeng@gmail.com

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