After the collapse of the 2015 peace agreement, First Vice President Dr. Riek Machar and the SPLM-IO leadership and SPLA-IO troops were pushed out of Juba by government forces. Machar managed to reach the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and was later airlifted, with the support of the UN, to Khartoum for medical treatment. I would like to acknowledge the role of former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon in that support.
Following these developments, the SPLM/SPLA-IO made a call to revitalize the peace agreement and reconstitute the Transitional Government of National Unity (TNGoNU). Juba rejected this call and instead proceeded to implement the collapsed peace agreement with Gen. Taban Deng Gai serving as the chairman of the SPLM-IO wing in Juba, more like what is happening today, with Stephen Par, who was suspended by the SPLM-IO in April 2025. Dr. Machar was placed under detention in Pretoria, South Africa, under the pretext of giving peace a chance.
The war did not stop in South Sudan after Dr. Machar was detained in South Africa. IGAD convened a High-Level Revitalization Forum in Addis Ababa in June 2018, and Dr. Machar was finally released to meet with President Salva Kiir, in the presence of the Prime Minister of Ethiopia, to discuss prospects for peace in South Sudan. After several rounds of negotiations in Khartoum, Kampala, and Addis Ababa, the Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan (R-ARCSS) was finally signed by President Kiir, Dr. Machar, and the leaders of other political parties.
The agreement granted legitimacy to the Interim-TGoNU to continue until the Revitalized-TGoNU could be formally established. Dr. Machar and the other vice-presidents were sworn in by the then Chief Justice Chan Reech Madut, followed by the formation of the Cabinet on March 12, 2020. From that time, the legitimacy of the R-TGONU began. However, the SPLM-IG/ITGONU, as a key partner, failed to honor the full implementation of the R-ARCSS.
R-ARCSS was later extended for two years to allow full implementation. Unfortunately, SPLM-IG began issuing unilateral decrees to ministries and rejecting the appointments of SPLM-IO nominees, and remained reluctant to acknowledge the power-sharing arrangements.
In February 2025, First Vice-President Dr. Machar, the chairman and the commander-in-chief of the SPLM-IO forces, wrote to President Kiir, requesting a meeting to discuss the deteriorating security situation in Western Equatoria, Western Bahr el-Ghazal, and Upper Nile states. The request received no attention until the Nasir County incident occurred in March 2025, after the local populations rejected the deployment of SSPDF forces.
Following these security incidents, Kiir’s SPLM-IG took a unilateral action against the SPLM/SPLA-IO leadership. Gen. Gabriel Duop Lam, the SPLA-IO Acting Chief of Staff, and the Deputy Chief of the Defense Forces of the SSPDF, as well as Co-Chair of the Joint Defense Board (JDB), was arrested. This was followed by the arbitrary arrest and detention of the Minister of Petroleum and Member of the SPLM/A-IO Political Bureau, Puot Kang, MP Gatwech Lam, and others.
On March 26, 2025, Dr. Machar was unilaterally placed under house arrest in Juba. The implementation of the peace agreement came to a complete stop, and the crisis continued.
The African Union Panel of the Wise, special envoy, the late Raila Odinga, and the Chairman of the AU Delegation were denied access to Dr. Machar in Juba. That marked the beginning of the diplomatic blow in the region with Juba. SPLM-IG, with its allies, attempted to amend the R-ARCSS, but it was rejected by the R-JMEC, the UN, the AU, and IGAD.
We now have at least 70 days before the official campaign period for elections under the R-ACSS framework and only six months for the R-TGoNU to lose its legitimacy. The continued refusal of the SPLM-IG to comply with the African Union C5 resolution to release Dr. Machar and return to the full implementation of the Peace Agreement places the legitimacy of the R-TGoNU at risk.
The only viable alternative to preserving the legitimacy of the current R-TGONU is to release Dr. Machar and return to dialogue with all the signatories and stakeholders. It is not feasible to conduct free and fair elections in South Sudan without the participation of Dr. Machar.
Our country faces severe crises, economic collapse, banks without cash, skyrocketing commodity prices, rising fuel costs, unpaid civil servants, and rampant insecurity, and the SPLM-IG Party is silent.
The legitimacy of the R-TGoNU will expire on September 22, 2026. I urge President Kiir to release Dr. Machar and return to dialogue. Without his release, nothing will work out. We must accept the fact that the house arrest of the First Vice-President was politically motivated to isolate him, and there is no case against him.
The writer is a Member of the SPLM-IO Political Bureau and former chairperson of the Relief and Rehabilitation Commission in Northern Bahr el-Ghazal State. He can be reached via Majokdit2024@gmail.com.
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