Whenever South Sudan’s future is discussed, the same question inevitably returns: When will elections be held? Yet perhaps this has been the wrong question all along.
The crisis in South Sudan is no longer about the postponement of elections or the setting of an electoral timetable. It is fundamentally about the nature of the state itself and whether it still possesses the minimum foundations necessary to function as a viable political entity. A complex crisis, shaped by years of institutional failure, armed conflict, and political fragmentation, cannot be reduced to a mere electoral exercise.
Nearly fifteen years after independence, South Sudan still lacks many of the basic prerequisites for any genuine democratic process: a permanent constitution, a unified national army, independent institutions, a credible voter registry, and, above all, a broad political consensus on the rules of the political game.
In this context, the persistent emphasis on elections increasingly resembles an attempt to address the symptoms of the crisis while ignoring its root causes.
Recent political developments offer little reason for optimism. The stagnation in the implementation of the peace agreement, growing security tensions in parts of the country, and the deepening crisis between the principal signatories of the peace deal all suggest that South Sudan has yet to move beyond the stage of conflict management, let alone enter a phase of normal democratic competition.
More importantly, the current political environment does not appear conducive to credible and competitive elections. How can one seriously speak of free and fair elections while one of the country’s principal political actors, Riek Machar, remains effectively removed from the normal political process amid accusations and counteraccusations over the dismantling of the peace agreement and attempts to reshape the political landscape ahead of any electoral contest?
Yet the crisis does not end with the ruling establishment.
One of the most striking aspects of South Sudan’s political landscape is the profound bankruptcy of its party politics.
In functioning democracies, the vitality of a political system is measured by the ability of the opposition to provide a genuine alternative vision for governing the state. In South Sudan, however, many parties that formally classify themselves as “opposition” have increasingly become political instruments with little apparent purpose beyond securing a place within existing power arrangements.
Perhaps nothing illustrates this contradiction more clearly than the spectacle of self-proclaimed opposition parties openly endorsing President Salva Kiir as their preferred presidential candidate.
This raises a fundamental question: if the opposition itself supports the incumbent, then who exactly represents political change?
If political parties neither present alternative programmes nor field credible competing candidates, what distinguishes them from the ruling establishment other than labels and rhetoric?
Indeed, the existence of a nominal opposition may, in some respects, be more damaging than the absence of opposition altogether. It creates the illusion of political pluralism while, in reality, concealing a deeply stagnant political order that continuously reproduces the same elite under different banners.
The proliferation of political parties on paper should not be mistaken for democratic diversity. A political system is not pluralistic simply because it contains dozens of registered parties. Genuine pluralism requires meaningful competition, ideological differences, institutional independence, and the existence of credible alternatives.
What South Sudan increasingly appears to suffer from is not merely a crisis of governance, but a crisis of political alternatives.
To many ordinary citizens, the distinction between government and opposition has become increasingly blurred. Both are often perceived as components of a single political class, differing primarily in their position within the power structure rather than in their vision for the future of the country.
Against this backdrop, elections—if conducted without addressing the country’s structural deficiencies—risk becoming little more than a mechanism for redistributing legitimacy among existing elites rather than producing genuine political transformation.
States do not become democratic simply by holding elections. Elections are the culmination of state-building, not its starting point. They require functioning institutions, the rule of law, security guarantees, and a shared commitment to peaceful political competition.
South Sudan’s priorities, therefore, lie elsewhere.
The immediate task is not setting an election date but preventing further state erosion, salvaging the peace agreement, rebuilding trust among political actors, and establishing institutions capable of managing political competition peacefully.
The most urgent question facing South Sudan today is not:
Who will win the next election?
Rather, it is this:
Does South Sudan currently possess the minimum political, institutional, and security conditions necessary for elections to become a source of stability rather than a trigger for renewed conflict?
The uncomfortable truth is that South Sudan’s crisis is no longer merely one of delayed elections. It is a crisis of an unfinished state, a crisis of political leadership, and, increasingly, a crisis of an opposition that has struggled to justify its own political relevance.
The writer is a South Sudanese political activist based in Paris, France. He can be reached via email: mahmoudakot@gmail.com
The views expressed in ‘opinion’ articles published by Radio Tamazuj are solely those of the writer. The veracity of any claims made is the responsibility of the author, not Radio Tamazuj.
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