By Nqobile Dludla.
Photo Credit: TNA.
South Sudan has pushed back its national elections to February 11, 2027, according to a timetable issued by the country’s National Elections Commission, in another delay to its first election since independence in 2011. No reason was given for the postponement.
Presidential and parliamentary elections were scheduled for December 22.
In September, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan said the country lacked safeguards and conditions for peaceful and credible elections.
“This is the timeline we have come up with after a thorough consultation with the stakeholders,” Josephine Achiro Fortelo, commissioner of the National Election Commission and its spokesperson, told Reuters on Saturday, confirming the electoral date had been changed.
South Sudan has been formally at peace since a 2018 deal ended a five-year conflict responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths, but violence between rival communities flares frequently.