South Sudan Kiir’s vows to contest for presidency in 2024
July 5, 2023 (WAU) – South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir said the general elections will happen in 2024 with him as a candidate for the ruling party (SPLM).
Kiir, who has led South Sudan since it became independent from Sudan in 2011, was endorsed by the SPLM at a rally in Western Bahr el Ghazal State on Tuesday.
The election would be the first national vote since South Sudan’s independence.
“I am deeply touched by your endorsement and your continued support to our historic party,” Kiir told tens of thousands of supporters at the Wau Stadium.
“As party [SPLM] members, let us work on the basis that there will be no extension of the transitional period and we have to go for the elections,” he added.
In August last year, South Sudan’s leaders signed a two-year extension of the transitional government, in a move foreign partners warned as lacking legitimacy.
This was the second time the parties extended the country’s transitional period.
Addressing jubilant supporters in Wau, Kiir said his government is doing everything possible to ensure that what is crucial to conducting the elections is put in place.
The President, a key figure in the country’s liberation struggle, underscored achievements so far made, specifically citing the Juba-Bahr el Ghazal highway.
He, however, said the Revitalized Transitional Government of National Unity (R-TGoNU) was doing everything possible to ensure that elections are free and fair.
Kiir appealed to the governors of greater Bahr el Ghazal region to support people returning from Sudan as well as Sudanese coming to the country as refugees.
“Those coming from Sudan should be welcomed. They are our people. All of you governors and the county commissioners should enlighten communities to receive and treat them well and share whatever is there with them,” he further stressed.
In March, the head of the UN mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) Nicholas Haysom, warned that the nation faced a “make or break” year in 2023 and its leaders must implement the peace deal to hold “inclusive and credible” elections next year.
(ST)