Africa-Press – South-Sudan. The President of the Sovereign Transitional Sovereign Council of Sudan, General Abdelfattah al Burhan, has reportedly told President Salva Kiir Mayardit that he and Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni oppose conduct of elections in 2023 on the ground that the remaining time is not enough to complete the implementation process of the revitalized peace agreement.
Al Burhan last week traveled to Uganda where he and President Museveni discussed the stalemate in the implementation process of South Sudan’s 2018 revitalized peace agreement.
Sudan and Uganda are principal guarantors of South Sudan’s revitalized peace agreement and the world’s youngest country cannot take landmark decision in the implementation process of the agreement with Sudan and Ugandan backing it.
Burhan then proceeded to South Sudan’s capital Juba where he met with President Kiir to discuss the implementation process of the peace agreement whose implementation is supposed to end within around eight months by leaders going to elections to end the transitions in South Sudan.
Speaking to Sudans Post this afternoon, a senior South Sudan government official who has direct knowledge of the discussion between Kiir and Burhan said the Sudanese leader told his South Sudan counterpart that he and Ugandan president were not in agreement with Kiir’s plan to hold elections in 2023.
“General Burhan told the president that no elections in 2023 because he and Ugandan President discussed and reviewed the agreement’s implementation and saw that the remaining time is not enough for implementation of the peace agreement’s remaining 80 percent,” the official said on condition of anonymity.
“With this new development, President Kiir will meet allies within the SPLM party, then the SPLM-IO and other signatories of the revitalized peace agreement and then he will present his final position to the people of South Sudan on whether elections will be conducted or not in 2023,” the official added.
Calls by President Salva Kiir in recent months for conduct of elections in 2023 has sparked controversy between him and other signatories of the revitalized agreement, especially the main armed Sudan People’s Liberation Movement in Opposition (SPLM-IO) led by First Vice President Dr. Riek Machar Teny.
Machar, for example, has expressed agreement with the calls by the president for elections and said national elections should be conducted after the end of the implementation of the transitional security arrangements which provides for reunification of South Sudan’s rival forces.
The reunification of forces has been lagging behind schedule as parties do not agree on composing of forces and the command with Kiir accusing Machar of promoting all his soldiers to high ranks leaving SPLA-IO commanders with no forces to command at all.
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