ANALYSIS

South Sudan: an election on December 22, but the peace deal is already over

13 October 2026 — South Sudan

The background

In Juba an election is being prepared in a country where, in the same months, there is fighting. South Sudan was born in 2011. Two years later it fell into a civil war between the forces of President Salva Kiir and those of his deputy Riek Machar, which cost, according to estimates cited by the UN, hundreds of thousands of lives. The "revitalised" peace agreement of 2018 (R-ARCSS) had a precise programme: a unity government, a unified army, a permanent constitution, a census, a war crimes court and, at the end, elections.

Eight years later, little remains of that programme except its last item. In August 2026, according to government data cited by the UN Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan, 46.4% of the agreement's provisions were still outstanding and the army had not been unified (OHCHR, 20/8/2026). The government chose to vote anyway, removing the missing steps by law.

The facts

The laws changed. In July Kiir signed an amendment to the 2018 agreement to open a legal path to the vote (Office of the President of South Sudan, 22/7/2026): a permanent constitution and a census are no longer required before elections. On September 21 the changes to the electoral law passed by Parliament came into force. On September 22 a presidential order read on state television dissolved the unity government (AllAfrica, 23/9/2026): vice-presidents, ministers, local administrators, the national parliament and the state assemblies all lose their posts. The judiciary and the security services remain, and Kiir remains president until his successor takes office. A few days earlier he had replaced the head of the electoral commission without giving a reason (Al Jazeera, 23/9/2026).

The reactions. Amnesty International called the dissolution a decisive step towards the vote and asked for an environment in which everyone can vote and stand as a candidate. South Sudanese lawyers and analysts interviewed by Al Jazeera note instead that all power now lies in one man's hands. According to one of them, the new law is ambiguous enough to let him postpone the vote by a year or two.

The electoral machinery. On September 2 the electoral commission denied reports that registration was already under way: no voter has been registered and no electoral roll exists yet (National Elections Commission, 2/9/2026). On September 22 it presented the paper registers and said it had received 25 million dollars from the government (Sudans Post, 22/9/2026). As of October 13 its website still announces no start date for registration, ten weeks before the vote (National Elections Commission, news). The last census dates back to 2008.

The Machar trial. Machar has been under house arrest since March 2025. That month in Nasir, in Upper Nile, the militia known as the "White Army" overran an army base and killed a general during an attempted UN evacuation, and the government holds Machar responsible for orchestrating it. Since September 2025 he has been on trial with seven co-defendants before a Special Court set up by the president, on charges of treason, murder and crimes against humanity, which he denies (International Crisis Group, 27/11/2025). The defence argues that under the 2018 agreement crimes against humanity belong to an African Union hybrid court, which was never set up. The prosecution speaks of a premeditated plot. At the end of September 2026 the trial was still under way, adjourned several times, partly over alleged threats to defence lawyers (One Citizen Daily, 24/9/2026).

The opposition. On September 23 the SPLM-IO, Machar's party, rejected the elections as a unilateral process and a recipe for a return to violence. It demands the release of Machar and the other political detainees and a dialogue at a neutral venue, mediated by IGAD, the African Union and the UN (Sudans Post, 23/9/2026).

The war. Since late 2025 the army (SSPDF) and SPLA-IO forces have been fighting in Jonglei. According to the human rights division of the UN mission (UNMISS), between January and March 2026 violence affected 1,388 civilians: 767 killed, 457 injured, 93 abducted and 71 survivors of conflict-related sexual violence. Deaths were up 89% on the previous quarter (UNMISS, 30/6/2026). In August two peacekeepers were killed and seven people injured when unidentified gunmen ambushed an UNMISS patrol heading to Pajut, in Jonglei (UN Peacekeeping, 24/8/2026). Political violence comes on top of violence between communities: on August 28 a raid on a cattle camp in Tonj North, Warrap, killed at least 49 people, blamed by the state authorities on a cross-border criminal network (Al Jazeera, 28/8/2026).

The aid. On September 29, in Jonglei, armed men attacked World Food Programme workers and forced them to offload food meant for nearly 20,000 people. The United States embassy reported it on October 12, without attributing the attack (US Embassy in Juba, 12/10/2026). According to the latest IPC analysis, from April, 7.8 million people, 56% of the population, face severe food insecurity; 73,300 are in catastrophic conditions and four counties in Upper Nile and Jonglei are at risk of famine (UN News, 28/4/2026).

Legal commentary

An election is not a violation. The right to vote, UN commissioner Barney Afako recalled, belongs to South Sudanese (OHCHR, 10/9/2026). The legal problem lies elsewhere, on three levels.

The 2018 agreement. The R-ARCSS is a political agreement between South Sudanese parties, mediated by IGAD, not a treaty between states. The government amended it through an act signed by Kiir, while the main signatory party, the SPLM-IO, had its leader in detention and had already declared the agreement "abrogated" in September 2025. A peace agreement changed without one of the parties remains valid on paper, but loses the purpose it was born for: keeping the parties inside a common process.

Machar's judge. The agreement provided for an African Union hybrid court for the most serious crimes committed since 2013. It was never set up, as we documented in an analysis in July. Instead, a special court appointed by the president is trying his main opponent, a few months before the vote. The charges must be established, as for anyone. For that very reason the UN Commission asks that political detainees, Machar included, be released or brought without delay before an independent and impartial court, with full guarantees.

The war. The conflict between the army and the SPLA-IO is a non-international armed conflict. South Sudan has been a party to the Geneva Conventions and both Additional Protocols since 2013 (International Commission of Jurists): Common Article 3 and Protocol II apply, protecting civilians and prohibiting starvation as a method of warfare. Attacks on peacekeepers may constitute war crimes, as UNMISS recalled, and the Rome Statute says so explicitly (art. 8). But South Sudan is not a party to the International Criminal Court: the Court could act only on a referral by the Security Council or if Juba accepted its jurisdiction.

Symmetry test

The picture does not pit a guilty government against an innocent opposition.

• The government hollowed out the agreement on its own, is trying its rival before a court appointed by the president and ordered mass evacuations in Jonglei, as the opposition also did in its own areas.
• The SPLA-IO has been fighting in Jonglei since late 2025. For the government, the Nasir uprising, with the killing of a general during a UN evacuation, was the work of forces linked to Machar; the SPLM-IO denies it and speaks of a local dispute.
• The UN Commission documents violence by both sides and asks all armed actors to cease hostilities, not only the government.
• Those who attack peacekeepers and WFP convoys have not been identified: attributing the Pajut ambush or the September 29 assault to one side is not possible today.

What worked. The electoral commission has received its first funds and presented the registers; the UN mission continues to document the violence and its mandate was renewed until April 2027 by resolution 2820, with 13 votes in favour and China and Russia abstaining (Security Council Report, August 2026). Even the most critical voices, such as the UN Commission, do not ask for the vote to be cancelled but for it to be made credible.

Our assessment

This section expresses the site's position. It is separate from the facts set out above.

South Sudan is a forgotten crisis for a precise reason: it seems never to change. Every year there is hunger, fighting, a postponement. This time something really has changed, and the change went by almost in silence. The 2018 peace architecture has been dismantled piece by piece, through formally legal acts, while Kiir's main rival sits in a courtroom.

The risk is a vote that closes the transition on paper and reopens it on the ground. The UN Commission put it in a sentence that sums up the case: an election is not credible simply because it is held on the scheduled date. The reverse also holds: another postponement without real dialogue would not be a solution, but the same deadlock under another name.

What is missing is not a date, but the conditions that would make it a choice: a monitored truce, a non-partisan army, an independent judge for Machar and for those who killed civilians on both sides. These are things the 2018 agreement had already written down. That it falls to a UN Commission and a few embassies to recall them, while the rest of the world looks elsewhere, is why we are writing about it.

What to watch

• The start and the figures of voter registration.
• The verdict in the Machar trial and the SPLM-IO's response.
• A possible postponement of the vote, which the new law makes possible.
• The Security Council briefing and a possible Council visit before the vote.
• The UN Commission's report to the Human Rights Council, in February 2027.

Sources: OHCHR, 20/8/2026 · Office of the President of South Sudan, 22/7/2026 · AllAfrica, 23/9/2026 · Al Jazeera, 23/9/2026 · National Elections Commission, 2/9/2026 · Sudans Post, 22/9/2026 · National Elections Commission, news · International Crisis Group, 27/11/2025 · One Citizen Daily, 24/9/2026 · Sudans Post, 23/9/2026 · UNMISS, 30/6/2026 · UN Peacekeeping, 24/8/2026 · Al Jazeera, 28/8/2026 · US Embassy in Juba, 12/10/2026 · UN News, 28/4/2026 · OHCHR, 10/9/2026 · International Commission of Jurists · Security Council Report, August 2026

Related pieces: South Sudan on the edge of famine, while the tribunal promised in 2018 remains a dead letter

← All news and manifestos