Big week for South Sudan and its northern neighbour

The two Sudans are each having a crucial week in their turbulent political histories, with both committing to a two-year road to democratic elections.

In South Sudan, the ruling party committed itself to peace and endorsed its leader, President Salva Kiir, who has been in office for over a decade, to run for president in elections due to be held in about two years.

Oil-rich South Sudan secured independence from its northern neighbour Sudan in 2011 but plunged into civil war two years later after violence erupted between troops loyal to Kiir and his ex-deputy-turned-rival Riek Machar.

In August, Kiir announced the extension of his transitional government’s time in office for another two years, meaning elections would be held in December 2024.

On Tuesday, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), endorsed him as its party leader and, by extension, presidential candidate.

“The SPLM Political Bureau decided to nominate comrade Salva Kiir Mayardit as presidential flag bearer in the national elections at the end of the transitional period,” Paul Akol Kordit, SPLM’S deputy secretary general for political affairs told a party meeting in Juba.

“This is a collective decision of the SPLM Political bureau. That tells you we have no candidate other than our chairman in the political bureau.”

A peace agreement signed in September 2018, the latest in a series since the conflict began in late 2013, is largely holding but the transitional government has been slow to unify the various factions of the military into a single unit, write a new constitution and pave the way to elections.

“I accept the nomination ... to become the flag bearer for the SPLM party in the general elections ... and I promise you that never again will this country go back to war,” Kiir said, welcoming his nomination.

On Monday, the party also voted to revoke Machar’s membership. Machar had previously defected from the main party in 2013, creating his own faction SPLM-IO, and he stated in October that any attempt to sack him was illegal.

Also on Monday, the young country’s northern neighbour reached its own watershed moment, but it was far from universally welcomed.

Sudanese political parties and the military signed a framework deal that they said would pave the way for two-year civilian-led transition towards elections and end a sometimes violent standoff triggered by a coup in October 2021.

The deal could mark a new phase for Sudan, but it has already faced resistance from protest groups opposed to negotiations with the military and from Islamist factions loyal to the regime of toppled leader Omar al-bashir.

Several thousand people protested against the deal in the capital Khartoum, with some facing off against security forces who fired tear gas, and stun grenades about a mile away from the signing ceremony.

“We will defeat this agreement because it is an extension of the coup,” one protester, 36year-old state employee Ahmed Fateh al-rahman, said. “We want justice for our martyrs, trial for the military, and civilian rule.”

Under the framework deal, the military - in charge since the coup - agreed it would only be represented on a security and defence council headed by a prime minister.

The outline pact set no date for a final agreement or the appointment of the prime minister, and left sensitive issues including transitional justice and security sector reform for further talks.

After signing the deal, military leader Abdel Fattah alburhan said civilians should control politics and guide foreign policy. Signatories applauded when he repeated a slogan used by protesters to call for the army to exit politics: “Soldiers belong in the barracks, and parties go to elections.”

Last year’s military coup halted a power-sharing arrangement between the military and the Forces for Freedom and Change (FFC) coalition, and Sudan has been without a prime minister since the start of the year.

Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, the powerful leader of the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces and Burhan’s deputy, pledged to protect the transition and issued a general apology “for the state’s violence and mistakes towards communities throughout (Sudan’s) history.”

Many of the groups signing Monday’s deal were the same that signed a constitutional declaration months after Bashir’s ouster, setting up the first transition.