Jenifer James
Africa-Press – South-Sudan. The parties that signed the peace accord are expected to decide whether the December 2024 elections will be based on the new constitution, said the national minister of cabinet affairs, Dr Elia Lomuro.
Addressing the 35th RJMEC plenary meeting in Juba on Thursday, Dr Lomuro said the parties will meet today and make crucial decisions on handling the pending tasks given that only seven months remain before the elections.
“If we have no permanent constitution, how do we go for an election? Because the agreement says we shall go for an election based on a permanent constitution, we will have views from different parties; some will reject them, and some of the parties will say we don’t need a constitution to run an election,” Lomuro told the plenary.
According to Lomuro, “Chapter 4 has been assessed by the concerned institutions and is now submitted to the High-Level Standing Committee (HLSC) consideration, which, as I said earlier, is set to be on Saturday, May 25, 2026.”
According to Lomuro, the High-Level Standing Committee will embark on the details of the discussions of the election-related points after the review and pursuit of a consensus.
“The base is the status of implementation of those critical provisions contained in the roadmap that will take the country to an election. Once that is finished, we will now ask ourselves the question of political parties’ registration,” said Lomuro.
The committee will discuss the fate of the constitution, the type of elections, the census and voter registration.
He said, “After the discussion, whatever will be presented to the leadership and to the parties to the agreement, and all the heads of the political parties will be based on tangible results agreed upon by all the parties.”
“We don’t need experts [because we have national] experts, so that is the approach we are adopting to reach consensus on elections.”
Dr Lomuro said the committee charged with the implementation of the actions continues to review the implementation status of the roadmap.
“So far, chapters one, two, three, five, and six have been reviewed and agreed upon by all the parties signatory to the agreement,” he said.
In August 2022, the government and the other signatories to the 2018 peace agreement signed the roadmap, preparing for a democratic end to the transitional period. The deal extended the period with an extra two years and stipulated how the remaining provisions would be tackled in the next two years chapter by chapter.
Source: The City Review South Sudan
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