![Michael Makuei Lueth, Information Minister speaks to reporters after regular cabinet meeting in Juba on Friday 2 September 2022 [Photo by Sudans Post]](https://i0.wp.com/www.sudanspost.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Makuei-Lueth.jpg?resize=1018%2C601&ssl=1)
Makuei, who is also the unity government’s minister of information was speaking during a press conference in the capital Juba on Friday and was responding to critics who have called for delays to address key gaps in the electoral process.
The senior government official claimed that South Sudan has enough time to address pending tasks provided for in the revitalized peace agreement before eventually going for elections in December 2024 and that anyone who is not going for elections will likely give excuses for elections to be postponed.
“We think that we have enough time and if there is any gap, all will be covered within this period. This period is long and is not a short period and as such we are going for elections,” he told journalists following the cabinet meeting chaired by President Salva Kiir.
“Let them continue talking of course there are people saying we are not going for election and those people who are saying that they are not going for election might create all possible reasons and excuses to justify their position but anybody nor going for election is free because it’s not compulsory,” he added.
The remarks by the senior government official comes a day after the UN Human Rights Commission in South Sudan released a report in which it called for a conducive civic space for the media, activists and political actors to operate.
“South Sudan still lacks an umpire to review and curtail the repression of human rights, and to resolve disputes that may arise through electoral processes,” said Carlos Castresana Fernández, member of the UN Human Rights Commission on South Sudan yesterday in Nairobi.
Fernández said the government was taking too long to establish transitional justice institutions, terming the delays by the parties to the revitalized peace agreement as “politically calculated strategies to maintain the supremacy of ruling elites.”
In 2018, President Kiir and First Vice President Riek Machar signed a revitalized version of a 2015 peace agreement. The deal was meant to steer the country towards elections, but its implementation has been slow with the two men postponing elections several times.
Although Kiir is calling for elections at the end of the transitional period in December 2024, his first deputy and leader of the main opposition party Machar says the country is not ready for elections and called for full implementation of the revitalized peace agreement.
