Introduction
As of June 2024, the future of the transitional process in South Sudan remains uncertain. According to the National Elections Amendment Act (2023), the National Elections Commission (NEC) must announce the date of elections six months in advance, so if elections were to be held in December 2024, the NEC would need to announce it this month, June 2024. That announcement has not taken place, and the parties to the Revitalized Transitional
Government of National Unity (R-TGONU) remain divided on the topic. The UN has made clear that in its view the parties have not achieved the “critical mass” of progress that is required to hold “free, fair and peaceful elections,” citing 10 preconditions involving technical, political, security and legislative reforms that have not yet been addressed by the parties.
Meaningful dialogue and communication among the parties to the peace agreement has been limited. The parties have announced their intention to engage in inter- party dialogue to determine the way forward, but little tangible progress has been made and political leaders have taken divergent public stances on key issues. More recently, in May 2024, a parallel political process was initiated in Kenya to revisit aspects of the peace agreement, and many
people speculate that it may provide space for the parties to negotiate another extension of the transitional period.
This report presents opinion polling data on elections and civic space to inform ongoing discussions about the fate of the transitional process in South Sudan. Among the issues it
covers are people’s perceived safety when speaking publicly on politically sensitive issues, the timing and sequencing of elections, what people expect elections to deliver, the
perceived risk of electoral violence, and respondent political preferences. The report draws on recent opinion polling data collected by Detcro, the Peace and Conflict Resolution
Evidence Platform (PeaceRep), funded by the UK Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), and the Raising Civil Voices program by the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung
(FES), funded by the European Union.
Between March and June 2024, Detcro and PeaceRep collected the views of 4,769 people in 15 locations across all ten states and one administrative area, encompassing urban, rural and IDP camp environments. Respondents were asked about their daily experiences of safety based on indicators of everyday peace developed through qualitative research during the project’s inception phase, along with questions about their perception of the peace process,
national elections, civic and political space, and climate security, among other topics. This is the fifth opinion poll that Detcro and PeaceRep have conducted since 2021.
To date, the research has gathered the views of a total of 18,039 South Sudanese.