Hommam Al Nassim 
The head of South Sudan’s National Elections Authority, Abinigo Akook, announced that the voter registration process will begin in June, to hold the country’s first elections since independence from Sudan in 2011.
Akook noted that a draft timetable has been prepared for these important elections, without specifying a specific date for the December ballot, according to a “road map” reached last year.
Speaking at a news conference in Juba, Akook said: “We will hold the elections… I hope that the election process will take place,” he said, stressing that the first step will be to register voters from next June.
Since independence, South Sudan has not seen any elections, but has suffered from ongoing violence and deepening poverty, making democratic elections a major challenge.
Although a peace deal was signed in 2018 to establish a “transitional” phase that would pave the way for general elections, persistent disagreements between political leaders have led to frequent postponements of electoral schedules.
In December, the UN secretary-general’s representative in South Sudan, Nicholas Haysom, warned that the country had not yet reached a stage that “allows it to hold credible elections.”
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