SOUTH SUDAN NAMES NEW ELECTION COMMISSION CHIEF AHEAD OF DECEMBER VOTE
REUTERS
South Sudan’s President Salva Kiir has replaced the head of the election commission, only about three months before the first national election since independence in 2011.
The president, in an announcement read out by the state-owned broadcaster on Tuesday, said commission Secretary General Gabriel Bol Deng will replace Abednego Akok Kacuol. He gave no reason for the change.
South Sudan has been at peace since a 2018 agreement ended a five-year conflict during which thousands of people were killed. Still, inter-communal violence is frequent. Presidential and parliamentary elections are scheduled for December 22.
Edmond Yakani, executive director of Community Empowerment for Progress Organisation, a South Sudan activist group, said the replacement this close to the election risks eroding voter confidence.
“Firing a chairperson of a electoral commission three months before the election is a disaster, but this goes together with what is the political leadership thinking about the elections,” he told Reuters.
Last week, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan said the country lacked safeguards and conditions for peaceful and credible elections.
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