Will Democracy Succeed in South Sudan’s Tribal and Sectional Politics?

By Tito Tong John, Juba, South Sudan

Sunday, 05 June 2022 (PW) — Democracy is a form of government in which people elect their representatives themselves, and the representatives of the people form government and opposition. Counselling is the base of a democratic state. The state ensures equality and equity for all citizens irrespective of their caste, color, language and race. The government performs all duties, for the welfare of all the people and is accountable to people in the performance of obligations. The opinion of each citizen is respected and given due importance. Every citizen has a right to vote to his favorite candidate, to contest election, to join any party and form his own party. That it is why democracy is defined as “Rule of the people, by the people, rule for the people”.

South Sudan came into being as a result of a strong democratic movement under the leadership of late Dr John Garang de Mabior. The people of South Sudan, who faced all the problems and difficult circumstances, showed their determination for gaining freedom. They boldly faced the situation and gradually solved the problems. The movement was based on separation` inalienable rights of independence and the real implementation of democracy was one of the objectives of the establishment of the movement. It was thought to adopt the democratic structure and enforce democratic values. Dr. John Garang de Mabior described the objective of the establishment of South Sudan as “Let us promote “Democracy” according to the movement principles.

“Unfortunately, it is a disheartening spectacle that within a period of 17 years, South Sudan has not proved itself a democratic state in its true sense.” Instead of becoming a model of democracy as visualized by Dr John Garang, South Sudan has become what may be best described as a “lame democracy”. The first democratic election was held in, 2010 during the Omer regime. In the constitution of, a democratic parliamentary government was formed for the first time in the history of South Sudan. This first phase of democratic government continued till 2013 when the civil conflict took place. In this way, South Sudan remained a democratic state for only 3 years. Democratic traditions are not yet developed in South Sudan and during these 3 years, democracy proved itself nothing but a failure. Although the implementation of democracy was one of the objectives of South Sudan however, democracy cannot succeed in South Sudan because its political leaders, bureaucrats and feudal landlords will never let democracy flourish. Moreover, basic democratic traditions of equality and freedom are not followed in South Sudan.

The main responsibility for the failure of democracy lies with politicians. Firstly, they are not sincere with their jobs and are unfaithful to the state. Secondly, South Sudan’s political leaders are so incompetent that their policies keep failing. People vote a set of politicians with a hope that their elected representatives will act as their faithful leaders and will devote themselves wholeheartedly to the services of the mankind. But to people`s dismay, South Sudanese politicians do not act as honest leaders rather they act as corrupt and disloyal politicians whom ambitions lie in filling their own pockets with public money.

Political leaders are responsible for playing games with people for their own benefits. They have destroyed the purpose of creating an independent homeland of South Sudan by giving rise to favoritism and corruption. In South Sudan democratic system, the elected leaders do not regularly visit their constituencies as they are least bothered of public issues. In addition, most politicians contest election on the basis of fake degrees or diplomas. According to some report, many politicians have been counted for contesting election on the basis of fake degrees and diplomas.

This clearly depicts dishonesty of political leaders. Confidence cannot be restored in the masses. Moreover, political leaders are incompetent and are unable to find out the solutions to the nations` problems. Political process keeps collapsing in South Sudan and policies of political parties keep changing and it is very hard for the politicians to reach unanimous stance for a particular policy. The policy of nationalization and posting of incompetent management halted democracy further. Ever since the creation of South Sudan, the same political parties have stayed in power. For example, Ruling Party came into power many years ago. People keep supporting the same party under the slogan “SPLM Oyeeeee” because of their affection for the founder of the party without even realizing the consequences of their support. Under these circumstances, democracy can never flourish in its true sense.

Bureaucracy also imposes a serious threat to democracy. Practically the constitution of South Sudan is based upon democratic principles. However, the proposals in the constitution could not be implemented because of the attitude of some people, who were not ready to leave the laws introduced by the Arab government in Sudan. The culture of bureaucracy has always remained powerful since the creation of South Sudan and the main cause which stimulated the culture of bureaucracy in South Sudan is institutional imbalance. Bureaucracy is neither in favour of giving power to anyone nor is ready to become responsible to anyone. This attitude is one of the main obstacles in the way to democracy. Most of the bureaucrats become partial and exploit resources of the country for a favorite political party. Bureaucrats of South Sudan are notorious for their corruption, inefficiency, and incompetency and thus responsible for destroying democracy in the country.

Another main cause for the failure of democracy in South Sudan is feudal system. South Sudan has inherited feudal system from “Arabs” and this feudal system will never let democracy flourish in South Sudan. Feudal landlords have a major role in forming policies and they would never like to formulate those policies which are against their interest or are beneficial for the people. The feudal lords acted as traitors and supported Arabs leaders for creating a moth-eaten South Sudan and now, at the present day, south Sudan is nothing but a feudal state. Most of the political leaders of South Sudan are feudal lords who have established their identities as political leaders. The feudal lords keep people at arm`s length and treat them as their slaves. The rigid nature of this class system has deprived South Sudan from educational and economic development. The farmers` community is under the control of their feudal masters.

Such underprivileged and economically demoted peasants’ can have no other option but to vote for their masters. The famers live beyond the poverty line and cannot even express their will freely. Here, the spirit of democracy is violated. Peasants are forced to support their lords due to their fear or may be due to lack of knowledge. In this way, the elections are of no use since the peasants will only vote for their feudal lords under their pressure and democracy will be worse than “oligarchy”. Supremacy of feudal class is destroying democracy as well as national integration which itself essential for democracy. Democracy has been proved beneficial for the feudal landlords since it provides a cover to them and allows them to rule for as long as they want. As far as common people are concerned, they feel themselves totally neglected in such a democracy. In this situation of distorted democracy, even a thousand elections will not change south Sudan’s future.

Democracy is based on basic traditions of equality and freedom of speech among citizens. As far as South Sudan democratic system is concerned, it has failed to achieve either equality or freedom among people and thus democracy in south Sudan is unsuccessful. This is clear evidence of inequality when people have to pay bribes in order to get themselves a job. There exists no merit policy, while making appointments and discrimination on the basis of caste, social status and even gender has eliminated the whole concept of democracy. Rich can easily exploit the poor. For example, the wealthy people are always encouraged instead of educated people. Very few educated people join politics and assemblies.

In this way, the uneducated people sitting in parliaments cannot build a democratic society on proper lines. In a democratic state, the opinion of each citizen is respected and given due importance. The citizens have full liberty to criticize the working of the government. Although freedom of speech exists to some extent in South Sudan, but due to no constitutional safeguard, it is not fully implemented. A common south Sudanese citizen lacks constitutional protection and thus when any civil servant tries for the good governance; he has to face many obstacles. Whenever someone tries to raise his voice against government, he is pushed back instead of going forward. For example, many journalists of South Sudan who try to raise their voice against politicians are threatened by them. Many senior journalists have disclosed that they had received serious threats from both non-state and state actors. Under these circumstances, no one will dare to stand against government. When the true meaning of democracy has not been fulfilled by South Sudan government, it cannot declare itself a democratic state.

Illiteracy is also one of the reasons for not letting democracy succeed in South Sudan. In South Sudan, the education sector remained neglected for a long time. The literacy rate of South Sudan is higher. Such underprivileged and uneducated people cannot make right choices. So maximum part of south Sudan’s population is still suffering in the darkness of illiteracy and backwardness and is unable to contribute anything towards the development of the country. High rate of literacy is important for democracy because illiteracy also leads to poverty. An illiterate and economically impoverished community cannot comprehend and follow the true spirit of democracy.

In South Sudan, most of the political leaders and parties support democracy. It is argued by its advocates that in a democratic state, rulers can easily be changed without violence. This belief is false as it is evident that whenever any democratic government fails, it is overtaken by military government and the solution is never peaceful. Every military intervention that has occurred in South Sudan had always been preceded by periods of lawlessness and mismanagement by the political leaders. The politicians themselves provide opportunity to Army to intervene. Various examples of military rulers in the country include Generals. Martial law is not itself enforced, but these are the bad tactics and failed democracy of the government which are responsible for giving rise to Martial Law. Moreover, the government can come back again after re-elections, for example “Sudan People`s Liberation Movement Party” came into power many years ago. The arguments in favor of democracy in South Sudan are fine theoretically but these are inappropriate in the current political scenario. It is believed that a democracy could never survive for long in South Sudan due to the incompetent people in the so called democratic system.

People support democracy in South Sudan because they believe that it is the only form of government which gives people an opportunity to make choices and whatsoever their choices are, members elected are majority people`s chosen representatives. General elections should be held in true democracy from time to time. The people can easily change their rulers by electing new ones. In South Sudan, the situation is worse because members elected are not people`s representatives. The main reason to it is that only very few people in South Sudan can cast their vote and unfortunately, there is very little evidence which can prove that elections in South Sudan can be fair and free. Firstly, people of South Sudan are not prosperous and well-off and thus their votes can easily be purchased. It has been noticed that votes are purchased very cheaply. Secondly, there is much rigging in the election process. Moreover, South Sudan political parties do not announce their “Party-manifesto” during the election campaign. First of all, the parties do not believe in any kind of manifesto and secondly, if they do believe so, it is so unclearly mentioned that it practically means nothing to the readers. In addition to this, voter turnout and election system have further destroyed democracy.

The accountability process is very important in a democratic state which results in clean and fair working of the executive. However, there is no system of accountability in South Sudan. Every incoming government makes big claims about accountability, but no effective step has been taken in this regard. The corrupt bureaucrats and politicians always escape from punishment due to no accountability process. The government affairs are not dealt transparently and the gap between people and the government is not bridged. A large number of politicians and government servants who have been known to be allegedly involved in activities like corruption, but no effective step have been taken against them. Under these circumstances where there is no accountability process, democracy can never flourish.

South Sudan is a welfare state which has been struggling for democracy since its creation. The existing government of South Sudan has been proved the worst ever in its history. It is because it has given rise to unemployment, inflation, poverty and economic crisis. Health and education sectors are in their worst conditions. There exists no equality, freedom and rule of law in the country which are the basic norms for democracy. In South Sudan, democracy has only resulted in corruption, bad governance, institutional imbalance and low living standards of people. Democracy is unsuccessful due to incompetent leadership and political policies. Moreover, bureaucracy and feudal system has abolished democracy further.

Inclusion, democracy is not suitable for a country like South Sudan where most of the population is underprivileged. It has also been badly failed in many other countries like Turkey, Thailand, Israel and other African countries. Hence it is proved that democracy is not the successful form of government. If it is successful in the United States and India, it is because of their political and social atmospheres. The socio-political atmosphere in South Sudan does not support democracy at all. South Sudan government should take the example of China and Singapore. China is not a democratic state but still the world`s second largest economy. Similarly, Singapore was also not a democratic state when it gained independence and Mr. Lee was its first president. He put Singapore on the map of the world and took it to the heights of success and prosperity. As I once said, “Singapore has achieved the American dream, but not in the American way”. This has been done through what they call a “Benevolent Dictator”. However, in South Sudan, good administration, accountability process and merit policy is the need of the hour. It is proved that democracy cannot succeed in South Sudan and instead of continuing the system of the state as a fragile democracy; South Sudan should either become a theocracy or a communist.

The Author is Tito Tong John, hold bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Catholic University of Eastern Africa, Nairobi Kenya while doing Master of Business Administration in specialization of Human Resource in the same institution. Previously I worked with different radios institution under Catholic Radio Network and currently an opinion writer at Dawn News Paper frequently. I work in accordance with National and Media Authority Laws, Rule, and Regulations through its service. I observe standards of journalism with high good of neutrality, impartiality, integrity, professionalism, and balancing information. You can reach me through (+211920908051 or +211912785339 WhatsApp/ Skype: tong.khamisa; Email: tongkhamisa446@gmail.com)

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