The recent opinion article by Jwothab Othow, published by Radio Tamazuj on 13 July 2026 under the title “Power Struggles among South Sudan’s Political Leaders Are the Cause of Ongoing Conflict,” raises legitimate concerns about South Sudan’s tragic political history. It rightly condemns corruption, authoritarianism, ethnic manipulation, and the immense suffering endured by millions of South Sudanese since independence. These observations deserve serious consideration.
However, the article ultimately reaches an incomplete conclusion by presenting elite power struggles as the principal cause of South Sudan’s recurring crises. This interpretation mistakes a visible symptom for the underlying disease. Power struggles are undoubtedly an important factor, but they are the consequence of a much deeper structural failure: the absence of strong, independent, and accountable state institutions.
History demonstrates that political competition exists in every democracy. Elections in the United States, Britain, Kenya, Ghana, South Africa, and many other countries involve fierce contests for power. Yet those competitions rarely descend into civil war because institutions, not personalities, govern political transitions. Courts adjudicate disputes, legislatures oversee the executive, security forces remain professionally neutral, and constitutional limits restrain political ambition. South Sudan lacks these institutional safeguards.
The country’s greatest tragedy is not simply that political leaders compete for power; it is that there are no sufficiently strong institutions capable of regulating that competition according to law. When institutions fail, political disagreements become security crises, constitutional disputes become military confrontations, and public resources become instruments of patronage rather than national development.
Since independence in 2011, South Sudan has operated under a transitional constitutional framework intended to guide the country toward a permanent constitutional order. More than a decade later, the nation still lacks a permanent constitution capable of clearly defining the limits of executive authority, strengthening the separation of powers, and safeguarding democratic accountability. The absence of constitutional certainty has allowed politics to revolve around individuals instead of institutions.
Consequently, executive authority has become heavily centralized. Presidential decrees frequently determine appointments, dismissals, institutional restructuring, and political accommodation. Whether such decisions are politically justified is secondary to the larger institutional question: why are constitutional checks and balances too weak to ensure that major state decisions are subjected to meaningful legislative scrutiny and judicial review?
This institutional imbalance creates incentives for political actors to seek influence through personal loyalty rather than through established constitutional mechanisms. In such an environment, politics naturally becomes personalized, and competition for public office transforms into competition for control over the state itself. Therefore, elite rivalry is not the origin of instability. It is the predictable product of institutional fragility.
Similarly, corruption should not merely be viewed as the moral failure of individual politicians. Corruption flourishes where oversight institutions are weak, procurement systems lack transparency, auditing bodies are ineffective, and anti-corruption agencies lack operational independence. Without credible enforcement, impunity becomes institutionalized.
The economic crisis further illustrates this reality. South Sudan remains overwhelmingly dependent on crude oil revenues while possessing one of the least diversified economies in Africa. Oil has financed government expenditure for years, yet the concentration of national wealth in a single commodity has created a classic rentier economy. Control over state institutions therefore becomes synonymous with control over national revenue, intensifying political competition.
Recent disruptions to export pipelines through neighbouring Sudan have exposed the fragility of this economic model. Government revenues declined sharply, salaries remained unpaid for extended periods, inflation accelerated, and essential public services deteriorated. These developments were not caused primarily by elite rivalries but by structural economic vulnerabilities that successive governments failed to address through diversification and institutional reform.
Climate change has compounded these problems. Recurrent floods and prolonged droughts have devastated agricultural production, displaced communities, destroyed infrastructure, and intensified local conflicts over grazing land and water resources. These environmental pressures intersect with political weaknesses, producing humanitarian crises that cannot be explained solely through the lens of elite competition.
Equally significant is the failure to establish a unified, professional, and nationally accountable security sector. The incomplete implementation of security arrangements under successive peace agreements has left armed actors fragmented along political and regional lines. In such circumstances, political disputes among national leaders can rapidly trigger localized violence because command structures remain divided and institutional discipline is insufficiently consolidated.
Ethnicity also deserves more careful analysis than is sometimes presented in political commentary. Ethnic identities do not inherently generate violence. Rather, political entrepreneurs exploit ethnic affiliations when institutions fail to guarantee equal citizenship, impartial justice, and equitable access to public resources. In societies governed by strong institutions, ethnic diversity enriches national life. In societies governed by patronage, ethnicity becomes a political instrument.
Accordingly, describing South Sudan’s conflict merely as a struggle between political elites risks oversimplifying a far more complex reality. Elite rivalry interacts with constitutional uncertainty, institutional weakness, corruption, economic dependency, security fragmentation, climate vulnerability, and the persistent absence of accountability.
Perhaps the greatest institutional failure has been the culture of impunity. Successive reports by regional and international bodies have documented serious allegations of violations of international humanitarian law and human rights during various phases of the conflict. Yet mechanisms envisaged under the peace agreements, including the Hybrid Court for South Sudan, remain unrealized. When political and military leaders believe they are unlikely to face legal consequences, violence becomes a recurring instrument of political bargaining rather than an exceptional breakdown of governance.
This culture of impunity undermines public confidence in the state. Citizens lose faith in formal institutions and increasingly rely upon ethnic, communal, or military structures for protection and survival. The resulting cycle further weakens national cohesion. The solution, therefore, extends beyond replacing one political leader with another. Leadership matters, but institutional resilience matters even more.
South Sudan requires a genuine transition from personalized governance to constitutional governance. That transition demands the completion of a permanent constitution through an inclusive and participatory process; strengthening parliamentary oversight; guaranteeing judicial independence; professionalizing the armed forces; implementing comprehensive security sector reforms; empowering anti-corruption institutions; protecting media freedom and civil society; ensuring transparent management of oil revenues; diversifying the economy; and fully implementing the outstanding provisions of the Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan.
Equally important is the cultivation of a civic national identity founded upon equal citizenship rather than ethnic affiliation. Every South Sudanese, regardless of community, should enjoy equal protection under the law and equal opportunity to participate in national governance.
Jwothab Othow is correct in urging South Sudanese to reject corruption, authoritarianism, and ethnic politics. Yet meaningful reform requires identifying the true foundations of the crisis. Power struggles alone neither explain nor sustain South Sudan’s instability. They persist because weak institutions permit them to flourish.
If institutions become stronger than individuals, political competition will remain peaceful. If institutions remain weaker than personalities, every future political disagreement risks becoming another national tragedy. South Sudan’s future therefore depends not merely on changing leaders but on building institutions that no leader can easily manipulate, bypass, or capture. Only then can the Republic move beyond cycles of conflict toward constitutional democracy, accountable governance, economic transformation, and lasting peace.
The writer is a South Sudanese constitutional lawyer, academic, and political figure. He studied law at Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda. He is an independent legal researcher and constitutional expert and serves as a lecturer and Deputy Dean of the College of Law at Starford International University in Juba. He is also a member of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-in-Opposition (SPLM-IO).
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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