South Sudan election plans vital to avoid violence – UN

Proper preparations are essential to avoid “fuelling violence and polarisation” if South Sudan proceeds with elections next year, a UN expert has warned while visiting the country.

“South Sudan is at a tipping point [and] and political contention amongst political elites continues,” said Barney Afako, a Ugandan human rights lawyer and a member of the UN’s Human Rights Commission on South Sudan.

The country is poised to conduct its first elections since becoming independent in 2011. Polls had been scheduled for 2015, but were disrupted by the civil conflict that erupted in the capital, Juba, in 2013 and lasted six years.

Last year President Salva Kiir announced that general elections would be conducted at the end of the transitional period in 2023.

But First Vice-President Riek Machar, who is also the leader of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement in Opposition (SPLM-IO), warned that he will not back elections until a unified national army is formed, a permanent constitution is drafted, a census conducted and millions of refugees can return home from abroad to cast their ballots.

“There is a risk that South Sudan is going back to war if elections are conducted without the support from the African Union and the international community,” warned Yasmin Sooka, a prominent South African Human Rights lawyer and chairwoman of the UN’s Human Rights Commission on South Sudan.

By BBC