South Sudan moves first national elections to February amid rising tensions

South Sudan has postponed its first presidential and parliamentary elections until February 11, 2027, extending a succession of delays as political and ethnic tensions intensify. The election commission announced the revised date on Saturday, November 14, replacing the previously scheduled December 22 vote. It offered no explanation for the change.

The world’s youngest country has postponed the elections at least three times since initially choosing 2022 as the year for voting. Violence has persisted despite a peace agreement signed in 2018 that ended five years of civil war. South Sudan gained independence from Sudan in 2011, but forces loyal to President Salva Kiir and his rival Riek Machar fought from 2013 to 2018 in a conflict that killed at least 400,000 people.

In September, Kiir disbanded the transitional unity government and installed a caretaker administration. The change opened a route to elections without completing a permanent constitution or conducting a census, both of which had previously been linked to the transition. Analysts and watchdogs warned that removing the power-sharing arrangement concentrated authority in Kiir’s hands and increased the danger of another widespread conflict.

Yasmin Sooka, chair of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan, criticised the changes in October. “This amounts to a constitutional coup through legislative reforms,” she said. Sooka also said that, regardless of whether voting went ahead, the country would need an inclusive political settlement, safeguards for civilians and institutions able to prevent further violence.

Recent months have brought increasingly deadly confrontations between government forces and followers of Machar, the detained former vice president. He has been held under house arrest since March and is accused of crimes against humanity. Other ethnic tensions and clashes over cattle rustling have added to instability in one of the world’s poorest countries.

Under the revised timetable, voter registration is scheduled to run from November 14 through November 28. A 45-day campaign period is set for December 27 to February 9, with one day of electoral silence before the February 11 ballot. National Elections Commission chairman Gabriel Bol Deng said 3,161 registration centres had been established nationwide and more than 22,000 workers recruited.

Registering voters presents an additional challenge because about 90 percent of South Sudan’s 15 million inhabitants lack identification recognised by the state, according to the World Bank. Deng said community leaders would identify people without those documents, particularly in rural areas. They would then receive an identification form allowing them to vote.