End the blame game and focus on the implementation of the roadmap key provisions before the elections, a civil society leader has told the peace government.
Bol Deng Bol, chairperson of the Civil Society Network in Jonglei, was reacting to the remarks by SPLM IG and the SPLM IO over the implementation of Key provisions in the agreement.
“The leaders are now embarking on blames instead of focusing on the implementation because the remaining time is not that very small, they can achieve it if they unite on this matter,” Deng said on Mingkaman FM show.
The two main signatories to the September 2018 peace accord have been blaming each other for the slowed implementation of the Key provisions such as security arrangements.
The parties graduated about 53,000 unified forces in the first batch in August 2022. In total, they are supposed to graduate 83,000 unified forces made up of police, army, intelligence, wildlife, and prisons.
Deng says the the parties should instead work on permanent constitution to guide the elections, conduct census, repatriate, and resettle IDPs and refugees before the country embark on elections.
Last week, UNMISS said the constant delays in the implementation of key electoral and constitutional benchmarks by South Sudan parties to the 2018 revitalized peace agreement cast doubts on the possibility of holding elections in 2024.
Guang Cong, the deputy special representative of the Secretary-General (Political) for South Sudan, said there was an urgent need for the adoption of the national elections act by the revitalized transitional national legislative assembly, the reconstitution of the National Constitutional Review Commission, the National Elections Commission, and the Political Parties Council.
“Despite the growing calls for elections in the public domain, we are concerned about the lack of progress in key electoral and constitutional benchmarks. As it stands, the conditions for South Sudan to hold elections are not in place yet,” he said during the plenary meeting of members of RJMEC in Juba, the capital of South Sudan.