UN to ‘limit’ possibility of violence in 2023 elections – Haysom

JUBA – The United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) is preparing to contain any possibility of violence outbreaks that may be related to elections slated for 2023, according to the head of the world mission, Nicholas Haysom, who is also the Special Representative of the Secretary-General in South Sudan.

“We want to limit the possibilities of violence before the elections, during the elections, and after the elections, if the parties choose not to accept the results. The one way of doing that is to run a professionally conducted and fair, technically satisfactory electoral process,” Haysom told reporters in Juba on Wednesday.

“Let me say that I don’t think there is a golden script for the election. The most important aspect of the election is that South Sudanese agree on what the necessary conditions must be,” Haysom added.

Last month, South Sudan President Salva Kiir announced that elections would take place at the end of the transitional period in 2023 as stipulated in the 2018 peace deal but his First Vice-President Riek Machar warned against holding elections before a unified national army is formed.

The UNMISS chief called on the parties to demonstrate political will necessary to hold elections at the end of the transitional period.

“I would like to believe that, if all the parties work together and demonstrate the political will necessary to hold elections, it can be done. But I also want to emphasize that a lot of work has to be done. Work has to be done by the political parties and institutions have to be created; the country has to be prepared for the elections from top to bottom, from east to west,” he said.

“Elections are a complicated business logistically – you have to distribute the ballot boxes, collect all the ballots, and count the ballots. You have got to have transport systems which move the ballots from maybe 25,000 or 35,000 different spots or voting stations,” he added.