Editorial: South Sudan’s Succession Deal: US Sanctions Relief at the Cost of Sovereignty
Let us unpack the Juba political playbook. Under Article 1.6.4 of the 2018 Revitalized Peace Agreement, President Kiir may delegate power in cases of incapacitation.
Thursday, 22 May 2025 (PW) — the sweltering corridors of Juba politics, power rarely changes hands democratically, it is inherited, traded, or quietly maneuvered into place. Now, with President Kiir reportedly preparing for a medical leave, his longtime economic adviser and business magnate–turned–Vice President, Benjamin Bol Mel, appears poised to assume the presidency through the back door.
But this succession is not merely a matter of constitutional procedure or health contingency. It is lubricated by something far more cynical: a quiet deal with the United States that sees convicted violent criminals deported to Juba in exchange for the lifting of U.S. sanctions on the Crown Prince, members of the First Family, and their business empires.
In other words, South Sudan’s next head of state may be installed not through popular mandate or merit, but through an ICE flight manifest.
Let us unpack the Juba political playbook. Under Article 1.6.4 of the 2018 Revitalized Peace Agreement, President Kiir may delegate power in cases of incapacitation. Conveniently, President Kiir’s rumored medical leave arrives at the same time as U.S. officials confirm a deportation arrangement with Juba, one that includes the removal of criminals not only of South Sudanese origin but also of other nationalities, sent to a capital already buckling under widespread insecurity, economic hardship and weak judicial infrastructure.
And who receives them? The very administration negotiating its own rehabilitation in Washington. What’s being traded here is not just criminals for political favor. It is sovereignty for succession. The country’s highest office is being paved with backroom agreements and transactional diplomacy. The Crown Prince’s ascendancy, long suspected and now seemingly inevitable, is not built on public confidence or parliamentary endorsement. It is built on legal loopholes, economic incentives, and the illusion of continuity.
For your information, the Crown Prince is no ordinary technocrat. He is the embodiment of the post-war oligarchic class: wealthy, politically protected, and largely unaccountable. His ties to President Kiir are not only commercial but personal. And his entry into the presidency, however temporary or procedural it may seem, will cement a power transition from President Kiir to his economic protégé, all while neutralizing rival factions still reeling from the last civil war.
The implications are vast. If South Sudanese politics continues to reward quiet allegiance over democratic accountability, then the peace agreement becomes little more than a performative document. If sanctions can be lifted not through reform but through favors, then they become bargaining chips rather than tools of justice. And if deportations become a pathway to international legitimacy, then we’ve entered a new, more dangerous era of foreign policy, where human rights and legal norms are conveniently shelved in favor of political expediency.
For South Sudanese citizens, who have endured war, betrayal, and institutional failure, this moment matters. Succession should be a constitutional duty, not a shadow play. If the Crown Prince is to lead, let it be with the consent of the governed, not the convenience of the First Family and Washington.
Because in a fragile republic still stitching together the fabric of peace, trading criminals for crowns may deliver short-term political gains, but at the enduring cost of legitimacy, sovereignty, and the rule of law.
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