Inter-party dialogue members brief journalists in Juba on Friday, 28 June 2024 (Radio Tamazuj)

Dialogue team to declare status of elections on Monday

The High-level Sanding Committee for the Implementation of the 2018 peace agreement and the roadmap has announced that the resolution of the interparty dialogue will be signed next Monday.

Addressing reporters after the committee meeting in Juba on Friday, the Cabinet Affairs Minister and a member of the committee, Dr Martin Elia Lomuro, said they had reviewed the implementation of the agreement and the pending tasks and will on Monday make a decision on its status and the elections.

“The High-level Standing Committee for the Implementation of the Agreement and the Roadmap have this morning reviewed and agreed on chapters one, two, three, four, five and six. We have looked at a number of activities, articles, sub-articles that have been completed, the ones that are in progress and ones that are pending,” Dr Lomuro said.

“We have agreed that we will clean up the document and meet on Monday afternoon so that all the parties can finalize the discussion and provide a way forward. I hope that by Monday we will sign the full document and then present it to the president to call the meeting of the presidency,” he noted.

South Sudan has been formally at peace since a 2018 agreement that ended a five-year conflict responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths.

Elections scheduled for last year were postponed to this December, but few preparations are in place. 

The feasibility of December 2024 elections — the first since the country gained independence in July 2011 — is increasingly in doubt. 

With elections barely six months away, political parties need clarity on how they are planning to expedite and complete the critical pending tasks to conduct free, fair and credible elections in December.

The original transitional period agreed to in the 2018 peace deal ended on 22 February 2023, while the extended transition period is scheduled to end on 22 February 2025.