President Salva Kiir is replicating the playbook of Uganda’s Yoweri Museveni by delinking elections from constitutional reform, undermining census requirements, compressing electoral timelines, weakening oversight, and legalizing unilateral amendments. Museveni, now 79 and running for reelection in January 2026, is notorious for breaking promises on term limits, suppressing dissent, and jailing rivals—a model that Kiir is copying outright.
The suspension of First Vice President and leader of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-In Opposition (SPLM-IO), Dr. Riek Machar, his house arrest, and the staged legal cases against him and other SPLM-IO leaders mirror these tactics. Elections are being turned into controlled rituals rather than instruments of choice. By importing this model, Kiir is deliberately dismantling the safeguards of the Revitalized Agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan (R-ARCSS) while wrapping authoritarian continuity in the veneer of legality. This is not democratic evolution; it is the calculated reproduction of a regional authoritarian template designed to entrench incumbency indefinitely under the guise of constitutional order.
The international community should understand that Dr. Riek Machar was not fully committed to returning to Juba to form the Revitalized Transitional Government of National Unity (RTGoNU), because he knew President Kiir was not prepared to implement the peace agreement as stipulated. Nevertheless, Dr. Machar went to Juba under intense pressure from peace guarantors, including East African countries, the African Union (AU), the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), and the Troika’s countries (the United States, Norway, and the United Kingdom). These actors assured him that the agreement would be faithfully implemented and that his security was guaranteed. They also promised to ensure the agreement’s full implementation. However, it was clear from the beginning that the peace guarantors were either naïve or had fallen victim to Kiir and Museveni’s carefully crafted deceit.
From the moment Dr. Machar arrived in Juba, he was effectively detained, unable to travel freely within the country, let alone outside the capital. This led to his formal house arrest on March 26, 2025.
To many observers, it was evident that Kiir and Museveni were searching for a pretext to act against Dr. Machar. The clashes in Nasir in March 2025—between the South Sudan People’s Defence Forces (SSPDF) and allied tribal militias, including the Shilluk-led Agwelek forces, the Abushok (a Ngok Dinka militia group), and the White Army—provided the opportunity they had been waiting for. This allowed Kiir and Museveni to act against Dr. Machar under the pretext of unrest.
This pattern is neither theoretical nor new. In December 2013, just days after civil war broke out in Juba, Museveni deceived the United States by claiming that Kampala would deploy troops solely to protect Ugandan nationals and key South Sudanese institutions. In reality, the forces were sent to shield Kiir, fight alongside South Sudanese troops, and target opposition forces—demonstrating how authoritarian allies manipulate legal or international frameworks to consolidate power. Kiir’s current strategies echo this same playbook: appearances of legality and reform mask power grabs and neutralize opposition.
On December 17, 2025, a rushed presidency meeting chaired by Kiir formalized a decision with profound political consequences: national elections would be delinked from the adoption of a permanent constitution and scheduled for December 2026 under the amended 2011 Transitional Constitution. The exclusion of the main opposition party, SPLM-IO, along with key civil society groups, was intentional. By sidelining opposition voices and civil society from critical decision-making, the presidency signaled that these elections would not reflect consensus or democratic participation but would instead be a managed process orchestrated to protect the incumbent’s power.
Behind the language of amendments, a deliberate political calculation emerges. Delinking elections from key peace provisions is not an administrative reform; it is a methodical restructuring of the transition to concentrate power in the presidency. These changes must be evaluated not by their stated purpose but by their cumulative effect: weakening accountability, undermining democratic principles, and preserving the incumbent’s grip on power.
Articles of the Transitional Constitution and the R-ARCSS reveal this intent clearly. Article 1.20.5 mandates elections under the 2011 Transitional Constitution instead of a permanent one, preserving an executive-heavy order and postponing meaningful constitutional reform. Articles 1.2.14, 1.20.6, and 1.20.10 further sabotage credible elections: moving the census to after elections strips the process of essential demographic data needed for fair representation, while compressed timelines for amending the National Elections Act and publishing voter registers limit transparency and oversight. These are structural manipulations designed to exclude scrutiny and tilt the process toward the ruling elite.
Repealing Articles 6.4, 8.2, and 8.3 of the R-ARCSS and renaming Chapter VIII to legalize unilateral amendments completes the architecture of political self-preservation. Far from strengthening peace, these moves dismantle accountability and normalize arbitrary decision-making. Elections under these amendments are not meant to transfer power, reflect citizens’ will, or honor the peace agreement—they exist to entrench Kiir, replicating regional authoritarian practices while masquerading as a constitutional order.
The level of deceit is stark. Kiir’s so-called National Prayer Breakfast on December 20, 2025—where he urged South Sudanese to become “champions of peace”—is a blatant mockery. Calling on citizens to seek God’s guidance is hollow when he has purposely hindered the peace process himself. There is nothing humble about Kiir’s theatrical National Prayer Breakfast. It is merely a fear-suppressing tactic he resorts to whenever he senses strong public dissent or political opposition. This is the same man who celebrated peace after Pope Francis kissed his feet in April 2019, only to later abandon the spirit of that gesture. If Kiir truly believed in God as he claims, peace would have been achieved at least six years ago.
I find it ironic that Kiir, at his National Prayer Breakfast, urges South Sudanese to reject tribalism and embrace dialogue, while the most divisive and destructive tribal group in the country, the Jieng Council of Elders (JCE), acts as an extension of his regime. His call does not surprise me, since Kiir is known for praising unity in public while doing the opposite in private.
The timing of Kiir’s prayer breakfast is especially cynical—just five days after the 12th anniversary of the December 2013 Nuer massacre in Juba. This event was not about peace; it was an exercise in emotion, deception, and manipulation—a self-serving performance that exposes the gap between Kiir’s rhetoric and reality.
Salva Kiir rules like a mafia boss, using his alliance with Yoweri Museveni to cement dictatorial power. Unlike Benito Mussolini’s brief admiration for Adolf Hitler, Kiir’s devotion to Museveni’s political bullying and repressive tactics is fanatical. Museveni recently promised to arm every Ugandan soldier and police officer with 120 bullets to crush dissent—a tactic Kiir has eagerly adopted through the National Security Service’s notorious Internal Security Bureau (ISB). By manipulating weak and compliant parties—the South Sudan Opposition Alliance (SSOA), Other Political Parties (OPP), and the SPLM-IO faction led by Stephen Par Kuol, which declared itself legitimate on April 9, 2025—Kiir has secured endorsements for delinking crucial peace mechanisms, including the permanent constitution, from upcoming elections.
This political repression is inseparable from economic capture, which mirrors Museveni’s system just as closely. Kiir has copied almost all of Museveni’s leadership practices. In Uganda, Museveni’s family members, relatives, friends, and close allies own or have stakes in many lucrative businesses such as hotels, agriculture, mining, telecommunications, and others. The same looting system exists in South Sudan under Salva Kiir.
Kiir and his inner circle control much of the mining sector, forcibly uprooting communities to secure wealth for themselves. Kiir and his associates also have business interests in major hotels in Juba and tightly control oil production—from extraction to sales and pricing. In fact, Kiir and his inner circle appear to know the national budget better than South Sudan’s own Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning.
Under Kiir, South Sudan is run like a mafia corporation, where an impatient godfather constantly summons his subordinates, takes the largest share of their earnings, and later accuses them of not bringing in enough money. He then orders even more extortion. This is how Kiir governs the country. The nation’s soul is deeply wounded—politically, economically, socially, and humanely. The actions of Kiir’s regime are beyond disgrace and morally incomprehensible.
Meanwhile, the Revitalized National Constitutional Review Commission has been making progress under the 2018 R-ARCSS framework, but Kiir and his parliamentary allies have consistently blocked a permanent constitution. His strategy is clear: entrench dictatorial powers in the new constitution to rule by decree, perpetuating the same tyrannical system that sparked the December 2013 civil war.
What is presented as reform is, in reality, a form of preemptive rigging. This is not democracy; it is authoritarianism disguised as procedure. Power-sharing is unraveling, public trust is collapsing, and political exclusion is becoming normalized. If Kiir and the leaders of the briefcase parties proceed with elections as planned, they will not secure peace—they will likely trigger instability. The international community and East African regional peace guarantors cannot afford to remain passive. Endorsement without pressure is complicity. These amendments are not reforms, negotiations, or steps toward peace—they are a meticulously engineered power grab, leaving no pretense of democracy intact and no legitimate defense for those who claim otherwise.
South Sudan can no longer be ruled by a copycat tyrant—a puppet master whose sole aim is to plunder the nation’s wealth, cling to power, and sabotage the country’s future. Chaos will likely follow the end of his regime, whether through force or popular uprising. This is democracy being dismantled and dictatorship being installed before the eyes of the people of South Sudan and the world. Kiir must reverse these unilateral amendments, restore the R-ARCSS, and meaningfully include opposition and civil society before a single vote is cast—or risk plunging the country further into conflict and authoritarian rule. The time for pretense is over: the international community and regional guarantors cannot stand by silently. Endorsement in silence is complicity, and the people of South Sudan deserve genuine democracy, accountability, and peace.
The writer, Duop Chak Wuol, is an analyst, critical writer, and former editor-in-chief of the South Sudan News Agency. He is a graduate of the University of Colorado and focuses on geopolitics, security, and social issues in South Sudan and the broader East African region. His work has appeared in leading regional and international outlets, including AllAfrica, Radio Tamazuj, The Independent (Uganda), The Arab Weekly, The Standard (Kenya), The Chronicle (Ghana), Addis Standard (Ethiopia), and Sudan Tribune. In 2017, the Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation (EBC) highlighted his article on Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s role in Ethiopia’s economic transformation. He can be reached at duop282@gmail.com.
The views expressed in ‘opinion’ articles published by Radio Tamazuj are solely those of the writer. The veracity of any claims made is the responsibility of the author, not Radio Tamazuj.