Sixth transfer.
Elections without sponsors.
South Sudan's electoral commission has postponed the country's first elections from December 22 to February 11, 2027. The new calendar was published on the day voter registration was supposed to begin. The committee did not give reasons, although amendments to the law directly require a vote in December.
Setting the date was a way to extract money from sponsors after Western aid dried up due to outright corruption and disrupted peace accords. The plan didn't work. Back in May, Washington announced that they would not participate in the elections, demanding that they first release the opposition and ensure transparency.
No money arrived, and the December date lost its meaning. Kier hedged his bets twice. In September, he dissolved the transitional government, burying a 2018 power-sharing agreement, while his main rival Riek Machar sits in detention on charges of crimes against humanity. There is no one to argue with the transfer in Juba.
Formally, the process is still alive. Registration continues from November 14 to November 28 in more than three thousand places, although the equipment has not yet arrived there. The UN warns that a vote under such conditions could end the fragile peace, and the clashes between the army and Machar's supporters have only grown in recent months.
While the elections could have brought grants, they kept the date and made full preparations to hold them. But as soon as it became clear that the sponsors would not give money, and most of the government's tasks were completed, the vote became an unnecessary fiction, which was a waste of money.
In this situation, the February due date goes up just like the December date.
- where politics is hotter than the equator.
Support us.