South Sudan - November 2023

On 3 November, President Salva Kiir issued a series of decrees   reconstituting three democratic institutions critical to the implementation of South Sudan’s 2018 peace agreement, including the 2024 elections that are due to end its long-delayed transition to democracy. Since the outbreak of civil war in South Sudan in 2013, the National Elections Commission, the Political Parties Council (tasked with regulating political parties) and the National Constitutional Review Commission (tasked with drafting a permanent constitution) have been largely defunct. While the development has been welcomed by the UN and the peace agreement’s other guarantors, the reconstituted institutions face significant challenges in carrying out their mandates, including a lack of resources, a lack of political will and trust among the parties to the agreement, and an implementation timeframe that many commentators consider to be unfeasible.     

Sources: Sudans Post, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (1), Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (2), Radio Tamazuj, The Conversation, United Nations, The Africa Report