By No. 1 Citizen<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
United Nations Secretary-General has called on parties in South Sudan to agree on procedures and timeline for conducting peaceful, free, fair, and credible elections.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n In a report presented to UN Security Council, Ant\u00f3nio Guterres acknowledged that the Transitional Government of National Unity has continued to provide seed funding to the National Elections Commission.<\/p>\n However, he noted that the necessary budgetary needs to organize the proposed elections have not yet been met.<\/p>\n \u201cI also note that the National Elections Commission has taken steps to assess the ground-level infrastructure and facilities and has consulted with key stakeholders on the electoral process, in addition to appointing state high elections committees,\u201d read the report.<\/p>\n The UN chief welcomed the ongoing political dialogue, including the discussions between the parties in the High-Level Standing Committee forum in Juba and the Tumaini initiative in Nairobi, which aims to include non-signatory groups in the peace process.<\/p>\n Guterres stated that the Tumaini initiative provides a foundation for the inclusion of these groups and can complement the implementation of the 2018 Revitalized Peace Agreement.<\/p>\n However, Guterres expressed concerns over the conflict in neighboring Sudan and its impact on South Sudan, particularly the influx of over 700,000 returnees, refugees, and asylum-seekers, which is straining local communities.<\/p>\n He also highlighted the threat of intercommunal violence, which could create an unfavorable environment for political campaigning ahead of the elections.<\/p>\n \u201cI encourage the Transitional Government to continue with efforts to address intercommunal grievances,\u201d stressed Guterres.<\/p>\n The 2018 peace agreement had initially envisioned the transitional government ending in 2023, but due to unmet key provisions, notably security arrangements, the timeline was extended to February 2025.<\/p>\n Despite this, the National Elections Commission has announced December 22, 2024, as the election date, a move that has been met with both hope and skepticism.<\/p>\n Observers have stated that the situation in South Sudan remains precarious, with many obstacles to overcome before the country can hold its first elections.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By No. 1 Citizen United Nations Secretary-General has called on parties in South Sudan to agree on procedures and timeline for conducting peaceful, free, fair, and credible elections. In a report presented to UN Security Council, Ant\u00f3nio Guterres acknowledged that the Transitional Government of National Unity has continued to[Read More…]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":27605,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[80,79],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27604","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Guterres.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27604","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27604"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27604\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27606,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27604\/revisions\/27606"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onecitizendaily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}