South Sudan Postpones Its First General Election Since Independence

Voter registration got underway in South Sudan on Saturday, just as the country announced a delay to its first general elections since gaining independence from Sudan in 2011.

The National Elections Commission announced that the vote, originally planned for December, will now take place on 11 February.

The elections were first meant to be held in 2015, and the authorities have pushed them back several times since, extending the transitional period again and again.

“The commission would like to take the opportunity to make it clear that the adjustment of the electoral timeline should not be misconstrued as a discussion to abandon or to call off the elections,” said Commission spokesperson, Josephine Achiro.

Achiro explained that the extra time would allow additional steps to be carried out, such as handing out registration materials and running civic education programmes.

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The announcement on Saturday comes against a backdrop of rising violence, power struggles between the president and his sacked deputy, and a sluggish voter registration drive.

Regional and international partners have also voiced doubts about whether the country is ready to stage credible elections in December.

Riek Machar, the former vice-president and the main rival of President Salva Kiir, has been held under house arrest since March 2025 over accusations of “crimes against humanity.”

The two men’s forces fought a brutal civil war from 2013 to 2018, which claimed more than 400,000 lives.

A peace deal signed in 2018 created a unity government, with Kiir as president and Machar as his deputy, and their shared administration was expected to prepare the country for elections in 2022.

Those polls have been delayed repeatedly, and the government has carried out almost none of the peace agreement’s provisions.

In 2025, Machar was suspended and charged with treason and murder.

The UN Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan recently cautioned that holding an election in December could trigger widespread conflict if it were used to undermine the 2018 accord.

Gabriel Bol Deng Majok, chairperson of the National Elections Commission, urged politicians to avoid violence and to speak “to the mind, heart, and soul” of the people.

“If you want to be the leader that our citizens want, it will happen. But not through violence, not through bullets, only through ballot papers,” he said.

The United Nations has repeatedly raised alarm over conditions in the country, including the displacement of tens of thousands of people and interruptions to international humanitarian operations.

The World Bank also estimates that around 90 per cent of South Sudan’s 15 million people hold no state-recognised identification, which complicates voter registration and creates major logistical hurdles for a December vote.

Authorities have opened more than 3,100 registration centres nationwide, and the exercise is supposed to run for two weeks, although officials admitted that not all the required equipment is yet in place.