By Charles Onyango-Obbo

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South Sudanese President Salva Kiir, an outlet wrote earlier this year, “has made a political career of postponing elections enabling him to remain de facto president since 2005.”

Beset by endless crises, wracked by deadly conflict, and a near-bankrupt economy, South Sudan has never run out of reasons not to hold elections over the past decade.

Now with a shaky government of national unity created after a peace agreement between Kiir and rival Vice President Riek Machar, elections were due to be held in February 2023 after a transition period. Still, Juba has failed to meet key elements of the agreement between the two former warlords, including the drafting of a constitution.

In August, the two leaders extended their transitional government for two years beyond the scheduled date, saying there were insurmountable problems in implementing their peace agreement. Kiir now believes that hurdles will be overcome, and elections could be held in December.

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Many, including South Sudanese civil organisations and sections of the international community, are urging Kiir not to press ahead, arguing that shambolic elections would only plunge the country into further crisis. In a nation where, according to some estimates, close to 500,000 people have been killed, nearly 2.4 million have fled to neighbouring countries, and 2.3 million remain internally displaced due to violent conflict, there is reason to be cautious.

However, South Sudan is the only country in Africa that hasn’t had a national election in the past decade. Eritrea has not held general elections since independence in 1993. Still, it holds local and regional elections, though they are tightly controlled by the government and the ruling party, the People’s Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ), which is the only legal political party in the country.

Despite the risks, South Sudan should strive to hold the upcoming election on schedule. And, the very fact that it would be a bad election, and most likely a charade, is the reason it should hold it.

In a fractious and corrupt country like South Sudan, you can never have a flawless free and fair election on the first occasion.

The first one, or ones, will likely be messy and stolen by the government and the incumbent. In fact, as in the case of East African countries like Uganda, which has held six elections since 1996, the vote there is still being rigged – but the margins of theft have been getting smaller and smaller. For many African countries, good honest elections are born from several bad ones.

Secondly, the government will always find some renewal from the legitimacy it gets from the vote, even if only from its supporters, as half the country rejects it.

Not only can the government claim that it has a mandate, but the voters also feel important, because they can say the power belongs to them and they lent it to the government. For some of the opposition, there can be some glee in rejecting the government, and they can also get some satisfaction from forcing the government to debase itself by stealing votes to keep power.

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A president elected in a bad election is also far better on the international stage than one who has ruled for years without a vote.

It gives his peers, donors being harassed by their people back home, and investors, cover. Prime Minister Ahmed Abiy, cornered by a Western journalist to comment on the democracy standards of the latest South Sudan election, would be able to say of a Kiir who won a disputed poll: “That is the ridiculous arrogance of the West; you believe your political system and election traditions are superior. It is racism. Do you think the two million people who voted for Kiir are all idiots, and you know better than them all?”

The journalist will then say, “But even some African observers said the election fell short of international standards.”

“That wasn’t the verdict of the African Union observers, but some unpatriotic Africans paid for by enemies of the continent. We know them. Besides, look at Western elections where power is bought by the rich, and governments with less than 20 per cent rule. Is that really democracy, or what you hold up as international standards?” You will hear the footsteps of the journalist retreating.

But if Kiir is still president at the end of next year without even a lousy vote, then Abiy has nothing to work with. His answer would likely be; “I can’t comment on the affairs of a sovereign neighbouring country. That question is best put to the government of South Sudan.”

I can tell you for free how the journalist would write that story. It would say; “Ethiopian PM Abiy refused to be drawn into whether South Sudan leader Kiir, in power for over a decade, had overstayed his welcome as unelected president.”

None of that removes the risk of the country being plunged into another round of murderous violence in an election dispute.

However, it is a relatively easy problem to solve, if the victor shares some of the spoils with the cheated “loser”, as Kenya did after the post-election violence of 2007/2008 and Lesotho in 2015.

It also works where the government wins by a thin margin, as in Mauritius in 2019, or more recently in South Africa when in June the ruling African National Congress (ANC) lost its 30-year majority and had to cobble together an alliance to survive in office.

The author is a journalist, writer, and curator of the “Wall of Great Africans”. Twitter@cobbo3