Africa-Press – South-Sudan. President Salva Kiir Mayardit has reiterated his readiness to conduct national elections in 2023, telling senior members of the ruling Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) party over the weekend in a closed meeting that the democratic process will be conducted without a census, according to a senior SPLM member said.
Kiir is under international pressure to organize elections on time to end the power struggle between him and opposition leader Dr. Riek Machar Teny who he appointed in February 2020 as the country’s First Vice President based on terms of the revitalized peace agreement the two signed in 2018.
The agreement provides for the reunification of the rival forces before conduct of elections to avoid further conflicts in the future. But the formation of the national army has not yet been even started as opposition forces have remained in cantonment sites across the country even without food and medicine.
Kiir has on several occasions told the public that elections will be conducted comes 2023, but opposition leaders such as Machar, Vice President Rebecca Garang, NDM leader Dr. Lam Akol Ajawin, have criticized the decision by the president saying they won’t accept anything less than the reunification of the rival forces before elections.
Speaking to Sudans Post on Monday evening, a senior member of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement said President Salva Kiir last Sunday told a gathering of senior member of the party that South Sudan’s government is ready to conduct elections without census.
“The President told the meeting that next elections will be conducted without census in 2023 because he told us that ‘time is against us’ and this is why the international community hasn’t been happy with the government and that is why elections must be conducted in 2023,” the official who requested not to be named said.
“Now, before elections, there are a lot to be made as a preparation, if the opposition is not happy with the elections before the formation of the unified army, there can be a join security force that will be tasked with the organization of the national elections and that force will have elements from the opposition and the government of South Sudan,” the official added.
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