Stakeholders and civil society on Wednesday met with the visiting delegation of the African Union’s High-Level Ad Hoc Committee on South Sudan (AU C5) and discussed South Sudan’s election preparedness and security among other pertinent issues.
The African Union (AU) High-Level Ad Hoc Committee for South Sudan (C5) is headed by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa. The C5 committee includes member states Algeria, Chad, Nigeria, Rwanda, and South Africa, and actively works in coordination with the African Union Commission and is tasked with overseeing the implementation of South Sudan’s 2018 Revitalized Peace Agreement (R-ARCSS).
Its primary role is guaranteeing the peace process, election preparation, inclusive dialogue, and international harmonization by coordinating with other regional and international bodies.
Edmond Yakani, Executive Director of the Community Empowerment for Progress Organization (CEPO), who attended the meeting, told Radio Tamazuj that members of civil society, youth, women, media, religious leaders, academia, and eminent personalities, among others, were able to meet with the visiting AU C5 delegation in Juba on Wednesday.
“We were able to share with them our opinion around the country’s preparation for the election, which is centered on a lot of challenges ranging from insecurity, inadequate funding transfer to the National Election Commission, ambiguity in the legal framework that requires clarity,” he said. “We brought to their attention that the elections must meet the standards of free and fair within the parameters of the peace agreement.”
Yakani said they called for inclusive political dialogue, as is being urged or demanded by AU C5 summit resolutions.
“That is very important, and we said the ongoing planning for the inter-party dialogue in the country must be inclusive and bring all parties who are rightful signatories of the peace agreement to the same table because that will help us,” he added.
The civil society activist said they told the AU C5 delegation that the fallback position for the citizens is the constitutional-making process.
“From tomorrow, we are advocating for a constitutional dialogue as one of a political process that will bring citizens to the center of the political transition. It will also offer South Sudanese an opportunity to answer the question about the root causes of political instability in the country,” he explained. “
Yakani contends that if the elections are not planned well, they may create more violence across the country.
“Those are the things that we discussed with AU C5, and they communicated to us that they have heard us and considered our concerns and will issue an official statement after they return to AU Headquarters in Addis Ababa,” he said. “Of course, we also talked about the insecurity caused by the deadly communal violence that is happening in several parts of the country and how it can hinder elections.”
“We impressed it that any political process must be inclusive and should be within the parameters of the AU C5 summit resolutions,” Yakani concluded.
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