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The African Union has given South Sudan the green light to hold elections next year 2024 as stipulated by the Revitalised Transitional Government of National Unity (RTGoNU) formed in February 2020.
The Permanent Representative to AU, IGAD and UNECA Ambassador Doctor James Pitia Morgan disclosed this while briefing President Kiir on the current regional matters on Thursday in Juba.
He said the African Union is ready and eager to see that South Sudan conducts its first elections after gaining independence in 2011, about 12 years ago.
“If the continental body gives a green light, then the country should be ready for the elections”. Doctor Morgan said.
The government said the African Union has given South Sudan a green light to go ahead with preparations for next year’s general elections.
In June this year, RJEMEC in their 9353rd meeting of the United Nations Security Council in New York, RJMEC Interim Chairperson Ambassador Major General Charles Tai Gituai outlined key benchmarks that need to be attained for the conduct of free, fair, and credible.
The benchmarks, he outlined, are the completion of the unification and redeployment of forces, the reconstitution and operationalisation of the institutions tasked with the preparation and conduct of elections, and the making of a people-led and people-owned Permanent Constitution to guide the conduct of elections.
Other benchmarks are judicial reforms and improvement to the overall political and civic space in which multiparty elections are conducted.
South Sudan’s main armed opposition, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement in Opposition (SPLM-IO) led by First Vice President Doctor Riek Machar Teny has renewed threats that it will not participate in the would-be 2024 general elections unless the revitalized peace agreement is fully implemented
SPLM-IO Deputy chairman and first deputy head of the transitional national legislative assembly, Oyet Nathaniel Pierino, said his group is not afraid of elections but wants the peace deal to be first implemented.
“We are not afraid of going for elections in this country. In fact, in 2013, we were calling for elections because the only election which was held in South Sudan was held when we were Southern Sudan in 2010,” Oyet said during his party’s membership registration launch.
South Sudan prepares for its election in 2024 since gaining independence from Sudan in 2011.