What type of federalism should South Sudan adopt and why?
Posted: 12 January, 2022 Filed under: Joseph Geng Akech | Tags: Administrative Areas, constitution, constitution building process, ethnic federalism, federalism, governance, governance framework, International IDEA, International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, Ministry of Federal Affairs of the Revitalised Transitional Government of National Unity, Republic of South Sudan, Revitalised Agreement on the Resolution of Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan, Revitalised Transitional Government of National Unity, RTGoNU, South Sudan, territorial federalism 1 Comment
Author: Joseph Geng Akech
South Sudanese human rights lawyer and PhD candidate, University of Pretoria, South Africa
Summary
This article spotlights existing debates under the on-going constitutional design process on the type of federalism South Sudan should adopt. It is a debate with varying and potentially divisive perspectives. Dominant proposals in these debates are territorial and ethnic federalism. I join this debate with an open mind, and I therefore try to refrain from taking sides. This article thus tries to bring to fore, the underlying arguments in both perspectives and makes three recommendations to break the impasse. The first option is to conduct a referendum for the public to decide while the second calls for a scientific comparative study on performances of both territorial and ethnic federalism. The third calls for open and transparent public debates on the type of federalism South Sudan should adopt.
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