South Sudanese lawmaker Stephen Ajongo Akol said on Sunday the transitional government could be dissolved on Sept. 22, as parliament works to pass amendments to the country’s election law ahead of elections scheduled for December.
Akol said the proposed legislation would allow President Salva Kiir to remain in office while the five vice-presidents leave their positions.
He was speaking during funeral prayers in Juba for the late Sultan Garang Deng Bol.
Akol said lawmakers had been working on the election bill since Friday and would continue reviewing it before passing it and sending it to Kiir for assent.
“We’ve been working since Friday up to yesterday [Saturday] on the election bill. Tomorrow again, we will revise it and pass it. Probably, by 12pm, the bill must have been passed and taken to the president to assent it,” he said.
He said the bill would be considered by parliament on Monday before being sent to the president.
Akol also said MPs had about 24 hours remaining in office and that caretaker officials, including governors, would be appointed by the president following the dissolution of the transitional government.
“We’re left with only 24 hours to be former MPs. The caretaker government, all caretaker governors, will be appointed by the president on the same day,” he said.
Akol reiterated the government’s commitment to holding general elections and rejected any further extension of the transitional period.
“People are going for elections,” he said.
Government spokesperson Ateny Wek Ateny was not immediately available for comment on Sunday on whether the government would be dissolved on Sept. 22.
Ateny told Radio Tamazuj earlier this month that the transitional government was unlikely to be dissolved on that date.
He said the government could instead be dissolved in October because Kiir was expected to be in New York on Sept. 22 to attend the United Nations General Assembly.
Dissolution plan challenged
Kornelio Kon Ngu, a presidential aspirant, third deputy speaker of parliament and leader of the opposition National United Democratic Front (NUDF), said the election-law amendments would be considered by parliament on Monday.
Kon called for elections to be held as scheduled on Dec. 22, 2026, saying South Sudanese should be allowed to choose their leaders through the vote.
He also criticised the implementation of the 2018 peace agreement, saying the government had removed key provisions and mechanisms of the accord.
“The elections law that was recently signed by the president has no things to do with the peace agreement. So the only option remaining now is conduct of elections as planned,” he said.
Kon said the parties’ agreement on the latest extension of the transitional period set the date for dissolving the transitional unity government at Feb. 22, 2027, rather than Sept. 22, 2026. He said any move to dissolve the transitional government before February 2027 would amount to a coup.
“In the constitution there is no timeframe set to dissolve the transitional government. What we did in the parliament was to give the president powers to remove obstacles that could block the elections,” he said.
Asked about Ateny’s earlier comments that the government could be dissolved three months before the elections, Kon said: “The minister of information is not with us in parliament. We are talking of what we have passed in parliament.”
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