President Mayardit shouldn’t run in the 2024 election: 3 compelling reasons

Author: Mark Deng
McKenzie Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Melbourne, Australia

In my recent article, I discussed how President Salva Kiir Mayardit has vowed to hold the first election in South Sudan in 2024. In this article, I argue that he shouldn’t run in the election. I provide 3 compelling reasons to justify my argument: President Mayardit’s overstay in power, the need for the country to heal without him in power, and his apparent poor health.

President Mayardit has overstayed in power

President Mayardit has been in power for 19 years now – since 2005. That’s long enough to achieve the goals he may have set for the country, whatever these goals may be. Unfortunately, he succumbed to power appetency that is almost endemic in Africa. In fact, he broke a promise he made voluntarily in 2011 that he would retire in 2015. He made this at a dinner he organised for Thabo Mbeki (former president of South Africa) and Pierre Buyoya (former president of Burundi). This was taken with a grain of salt. Mbeki, for example, retorted that he wouldn’t be surprised if President Mayardit had a change of mind in due course. The President responded, saying that he meant it.

Fast forward, 2015 came, but President Mayardit didn’t keep his promise. Deng Alor Kuol (former minister of government) who broke the news about the President’s promise was accused of having spread false information (or creating a false hope for those who may have positioned themselves to replace him). He was defenceless.

Nation to heal from civil war without President Mayardit

South Sudan descended into a vicious civil war in 2013. President Mayardit bears much of the responsibility for the war, in part because he has become insensitively dictatorial, silencing pro-democracy voices in his party and in the country. This was largely what encouraged politically ambitious individuals, eg, Dr Riek Machar Teny, to challenge him for power militarily in 2013.

There would be little urge for an armed rebellion if President Mayardit had implemented a genuine democratic process by which leaders can vie for power in the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), as this is the only legitimate means to seek power from the people of South Sudan.

In an effort to find a solution to the war, President Mayardit established the National Dialogue in 2017, facilitated by a committee. The committee was instructed to canvass the views of the South Sudanese people on how the war could be resolved, among other things.

The people spoke candidly, stating that President Mayardit and Dr Riek have held the country hostage through their endless violent contest for power. Thus, for the country to heal and move forward in a unified direction, both must retire from office and politics altogether.

Unfortunately, they haven’t heeded that call, and they are more likely to run against each other in the 2024 presidential election. In the circumstance, there is potential for the election to trigger another round of violence. For one thing, it is unlikely that the election will be conducted in a free and fair manner.

With this anticipation, opposition parties might join forces and frustrate the election by boycotting it. This could force the government to bring itself into line both in terms of addressing election prerequisites outstanding in the revitalised agreement and making the electoral environment more certain for opposition parties.

His apparent poor health

President Mayardit’s health isn’t in a good state. One can tell this from the abnormal way he walks and the fact that he struggles to deliver his speeches, which has become more problematic in recent times. Surely, this is not how the people of South Sudan want to see themselves represented.

Also, relevant to his health issues is his age. He is a septuagenarian, although his date of birth may not be correct, which is not surprising for an older South Sudanese person – one born in the village like most South Sudanese. Old age can have serious implications for cognitive functioning.

Some people may take exception to discussing President Mayardit’s health status publicly, as they may think of it as disrespectful, or that it is a private matter. I make three points in response. First, the discussion comes within the broader scope of the ‘freedom of expression’ protected in the Transitional Constitution of South Sudan. Second, the President’s health issues are relevant to the question of his fitness for office, which is in the public interest.

Third, President Mayardit is a political executive, not a monarch, meaning he’s not above politics or immune from criticism. That said, lese-majeste law – a law protecting the dignity of a monarch – has no place for him.

On the whole

President Mayardit has made his mark on the history of South Sudan as both a liberator and founding father.  There can never be any greater things he can wish to achieve for South Sudan than these. But given his poor health and other serious issues that call his competence into question, the right thing he can do for himself and the nation he helped founded is to retire and not run in the 2024 election.

This would also provide a relief for the people to whom he’s potentially a source of their traumas. Not least because of the mass atrocities his forces have committed in his name since the civil war began in 2013.

About the Author:
Mark Deng is a McKenzie Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne, Australia. He’s a co-Convenor of the Brown Bag Seminar Series at the Centre for Comparative Constitutional Studies, Melbourne Law School. His research intersects the South Sudanese public law, human rights, and customary law and practices. He’s currently working on a book on the emerging constitutionalism in South Sudan (Hart Publishing).