South Sudan's English Daily Newspaper
"We Dare where others fear"
By Simon Deng
The Executive Director for Community Empowerment for Progress Organization (CEPO), Edmund Yakani on Sunday urged parties to the revitalized peace agreement to build consensus on elections.
“CEPO is urging the political leadership of the country to take urgent steps for making political decisions that favor consensus building for the conduct of democratic and peaceful elections for ending the political transitional period,” Yakani said in a statement issued in Juba.
“Political leaders of South Sudan are at critical time that requires putting aside personal or group interest. Per now our national interest is democratic and peaceful end of the political transitional period without return to violence,” he disclosed.
Yakani revealed that there is misunderstanding among the parties about the election timeline.
He advised the political leaders to listen to voices of the friends of South Sudan calling for holding of elections in December 2024 without failure.
“One of the grave mistakes following the 2016 political crisis will be the political leaders failing to end the transitional period through holding democratic and peaceful elections, or attempting to extend the transitional period again without national consensus,” Yakani said.
On February 29, 2024, the visiting United States Deputy Assistant Secretary for East Africa, Sudan and South Sudan in the Bureau of African Affairs, Peter Lord urged the transitional government to step up efforts to create conducive environment for the upcoming elections scheduled for December this year.
On Friday last week, Oyet Nathaniel Pierino, the Deputy Chairman of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-In Opposition (SPLM-IO) threatened that his party may boycott the upcoming elections if key requisite conditions for conducting the polls are not fully met.
He outlined these key conditions as the full implementation of the security arrangements, enactment of the permanent constitution, and repatriation of refugees, internally displaced persons and also conducting of the population census.
Oyet further warned of constitutional crisis, if elections were to be conducted in the absence of the permanent constitution.
The transitional period under the 2018 revitalized peace agreement is scheduled to end in February 2025.
