South Sudan’s ruling Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) will open nominations on Monday for party members seeking to contest national and state legislative seats, governorships and chief administrator positions in elections scheduled for December, the party’s secretary-general said on Saturday.
SPLM Secretary-General Akol Paul Kordit said nominations would run from Oct. 5 to Oct. 9 at the party’s national secretariat in Juba.
The SPLM is currently the most visible party in preparations for the December vote, including grassroots mobilisation and candidate selection. Other parties have participated in inter-party dialogue in Juba but have not announced comparable nationwide candidate-selection activities.
Kordit said the process is an internal party exercise to select candidates for the general elections and is separate from the formal electoral process overseen by the National Elections Commission (NEC).
“This process that we are beginning on Monday is not the general election. It is an internal democracy within the SPLM,” Kordit told reporters.
The NEC is responsible under the electoral law for the conduct of elections, including candidate nominations and regulation of political party nominations. The elections are scheduled for Dec. 22, 2026.
Kordit said the SPLM would accept applications from members seeking to contest seats in the national parliament, state assemblies, governorships and the legislative councils of the three administrative areas.
He said applicants would have to meet party eligibility requirements, including SPLM membership, and pay a non-refundable nomination fee. The amount of the fee would be communicated when candidates collect their forms, he said.
Applicants would then be shortlisted before undergoing party primaries, Kordit said. Candidates seeking legislative positions would be required to compete in primaries at county level.
“No one in the SPLM will contest in the national general election without going through internal democracy within the SPLM,” he said.
Kordit said party affairs at state and administrative-area level would continue to be managed by interim SPLM secretaries pending party congresses to elect permanent party officials.
He also said SPLM county chairpersons would be elected through party congresses, with delegates from payams, and those elected would subsequently become the party’s candidates for commissioner positions in local elections.
The announcement comes as South Sudan steps up preparations for the December polls. The NEC has been training state-level election officials on voter registration, while the electoral body has said it is preparing for elections across the country’s 10 states and three administrative areas.
President Salva Kiir dissolved the Revitalised Transitional Government of National Unity on Sept. 22 and formed a caretaker administration ahead of the elections.
Kordit said the caretaker governors and chief administrators are expected to remain politically neutral in their government roles and would not manage SPLM affairs in their respective states or administrative areas.
The SPLM has endorsed Kiir as its presidential candidate for the December election.
and then