The latest statement from the Office of the President speaks repeatedly of sovereignty, national ownership, democratic elections, judicial independence, and reform. These are principles that no South Sudanese should reject. The problem begins when the government presents its own position as though it were the sovereign will of the South Sudanese people.
South Sudan is a sovereign country, and its people have every right to determine their political future. But sovereignty belongs to the people, not to whoever happens to control the institutions of the state. This distinction matters because the statement appears to confuse government ownership with national ownership.
The government says that political decisions belong to the people and institutions of South Sudan. The question is whether those people and institutions are genuinely free to participate in determining the country’s future, including those political forces that do not agree with the government.
National ownership cannot mean that those in power decide the political process and then describe that process as nationally owned.
This is precisely why the position advanced by the South Sudan Opposition Movements Alliance (SSOMA), including the National Salvation Front (NAS) and its partners, deserves serious consideration. NAS and its SSOMA partners have consistently maintained that South Sudan needs a genuinely inclusive political process that brings together all stakeholders and addresses the causes of the conflict before the country proceeds to elections. NAS has made clear that it does not reject elections as a democratic principle. Its position is that elections should follow, rather than precede, the establishment of the conditions that can make them credible.
That is not opposition to democracy. It is an argument about how democracy can actually be made to work.
The same principle has been advanced by SSOMA, which has called for a comprehensive peace process involving all relevant stakeholders and negotiations addressing governance, security reform and justice. SSOMA has argued that sustainable peace requires a process genuinely owned by South Sudanese rather than an arrangement that simply prepares the country for elections while leaving the underlying political crisis unresolved.
The government should therefore not have to look far to understand what genuine national ownership could mean.
The same problem appears in the discussion of elections.
South Sudanese people have waited far too long for the opportunity to choose their leaders through a genuine democratic process. Nobody should be arguing for endless transition. But holding an election is not, by itself, the achievement of democracy.
For an election to have meaning, citizens must be able to organize, campaign, speak freely and present alternatives without intimidation. Political parties and movements must have space to operate. Security institutions must be sufficiently unified and professional to protect citizens rather than political interests. Electoral and judicial institutions must be trusted to operate independently.
These conditions cannot simply be assumed because the government has announced that elections must take place.
NAS warned in July that proceeding with the December elections without resolving the country’s political and security crisis risks using the ballot to confer legitimacy rather than allowing citizens to exercise a genuine democratic choice. It called instead for an inclusive political process involving political parties, armed movements, civil society, women, youth and faith-based institutions.
This is consistent with the position of SSOMA and its constituent movements, which have maintained that elections should emerge from a credible peace and political settlement rather than being used as a substitute for one. The argument that South Sudan must end the transition therefore cannot simply become an argument for rushing towards elections regardless of the conditions.
The purpose of a transition is to create a legitimate political order. If the conditions necessary for a credible election have not been established, then the answer should be to address those deficiencies, not to redefine an election date as evidence of democratic progress.
The government’s appeal to sovereignty also requires some consistency. South Sudan should certainly not be governed by foreign capitals. But sovereignty cannot mean freedom from scrutiny.
South Sudan entered into the Revitalized Peace Agreement with its own political commitments and accepted regional and international mechanisms to monitor its implementation. International partners have invested heavily in the peace process and continue to provide humanitarian and development assistance.
Their role should not be to govern South Sudan. But they have every legitimate reason to ask whether commitments undertaken by the South Sudanese parties are being fulfilled.
Indeed, South Sudanese opposition movements have themselves repeatedly engaged regional and international actors in search of an inclusive political settlement. In May, SSOMA representatives led by NAS Chairman and SSOMA Chairman Gen. Thomas Cirillo met the African Union’s High Representative for the Horn of Africa, former Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete, and called for a new comprehensive peace initiative bringing all stakeholders to the table.
That is an important distinction.
Seeking international support for a South Sudanese-owned peace process is not surrendering sovereignty. It is using diplomacy to help South Sudanese resolve a South Sudanese crisis.
The government cannot welcome international partnership when it brings assistance and then object to that partnership when it brings criticism.
There is another contradiction in the statement’s treatment of the judiciary.
Respect for due process is essential. Judicial proceedings should be allowed to follow their proper course, and political actors should not dictate the outcome of court cases. But respect for judicial independence must apply consistently.
South Sudan needs institutions capable of operating independently of political power. Questions about due process and the independence of institutions cannot simply be dismissed as foreign interference whenever they become uncomfortable for the government.
The same principle applies to security-sector reform.
The statement calls for a professional, unified, and nationally representative security sector. This is precisely what South Sudan needs. But a national security sector cannot be built merely through government declarations. It requires political agreement, genuine unification of forces, and confidence among the country’s competing political constituencies that the security institutions belong to the nation rather than to those controlling the government.
This is another area where NAS and SSOMA have been clear. They have repeatedly linked security reform to a broader political settlement, rather than treating it as a technical exercise that can be separated from the political crisis. They argue that the country needs institutions that serve the nation as a whole.
South Sudan’s long struggle was not fought so that one political establishment could inherit the state and then claim exclusive ownership of the country’s sovereignty. The sacrifices of our people were made for freedom, dignity, justice and the right to determine our own future.
That right cannot be reduced to the right of a government to tell its international partners to remain silent. Nor can it be fulfilled simply by placing a ballot box before a population that has not been given the political and security conditions necessary to make a free choice.
The government says that South Sudan wants peace, reform and democracy. On this, there should be no disagreement. The disagreement is over how those objectives are to be achieved.
The position advanced by NAS and its SSOMA partners is not a call for South Sudan to remain in perpetual transition. It is a call for a genuine political settlement that can end the cycle of conflict, reform the institutions of the state, and create the conditions for citizens to choose their leaders freely. That is a very different proposition from rejecting democracy.
Peace must come before a credible election, not be declared after an election has already been arranged. National ownership must mean that the people and all relevant political forces have a voice in shaping the country’s future.
Sovereignty belongs to the South Sudanese people. If the government genuinely believes in national ownership, then it should have no reason to fear an inclusive political process in which South Sudanese are free to debate, organize, and choose the future they want.
That is the test of sovereignty, and that is where the real struggle for South Sudan’s future remains.
The writer, Sokiri Lo Poni, is a concerned South Sudanese. He can be reached via Sokiril8@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.
and then