Africa-Press – South-Sudan. There have been political activities in 2023. The front-running political parties, particularly SPLM-IG and SPLM-IO, have been active, tightening their grip on grassroots support. The activities run in tandem with the political season after the parties to the agreement signed the Roadmap last year, allowing an extension of the transitional period but also setting up the election for December 2024.
As a result, we have seen the SPLM regional leaders prepare mega rallies to endorse President Salva Kiir for the top seat next year. It started in Wau, Western Bahr el Ghazal and will soon take place in Equatoria. There is a plan in place for another endorsement in the Upper Nile regions-which is spearheaded by the governor of Unity State.
While the ruling party has been aggressive with the “mobilisation”, it is yet to come into the open by asking the voters to vote their candidate next year, as would be expected in a typical campaign, The other parties are apparently caught in a spectatorship zone. For instance, SPLM-IO and SSOA parties are yet to come out in the open and conduct rallies of such magnitude; let alone the others. The parties have not settled on a presidential candidate, and such could be the reason for their docility. However, all parties have decried the lack of civic space, which they say cripples their activities.
It is obvious that if the political landscape remains as it is; where dominant parties have an edge over smaller ones especially on ground of tolerance to penetrate grassroots, the election could end up failing the “free and fair” metric. It is possible and desirable that South Sudan will have a peaceful election, given the commitment that leaders have publicly vouched for. But it is also possible that the imbalance created by the lack of civic space could definitely jeorpardise the exercise by skewing the results in a particular way.
The big question is, how do we move from here? The government and the various political parties must exercise tolerance and allow healthy competition. In addition, the National Electoral Commission must be operationalized so that it can come up with the timeline and effectively declare the start of campaigns and its end to ensure that no candidates are disadvantaged.
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