South Sudan's Top Leaders have Falling Out

 Agence France Presse published on 25 October 2022 an article titled "South Sudan VP Rejects Ouster from Ruling Party" by John Macdougall.

South Sudan's Vice President, Riek Machar, refused to be removed from the ruling Sudan People's Liberation Movement by President Salva Kiir.  It is not clear if this incident will result in renewed conflict between the two faction leaders.

Prospects for the South Sudan Peace Agreement

Chatham House published on 19 August 2015 a commentary titled "What Will It Take to Secure Lasting Peace in South Sudan?" by Dame Rosalind Marsden.

Although Salva Kiir signed the peace agreement after this piece was written, Dame Marsden is skeptical that the agreement will hold up. 

Reforming the Sudan People's Liberation Movement

The Institute for Security Studies published in August 2014 an analysis titled "Reforming the SPLM: A Requisite for Peace and Nation Building" by Paula Cristina Roque, a specialist on South Sudan and Angola.

The author concludes that transforming the SPLM entails ensuring that politics become demilitarized; party structures reach the grassroots; and decision-making rules and leadership succession processes are established.  The SPLM must neutralize the military legacy of being structured according to Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA) seniority, demobilize private militias, and allow the SPLA to become a professional, depoliticized national army.  It also requires more political consultation.

South Sudan: No Power-Sharing without Political Reform

The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) reprinted a two-part analysis from Uganda's New Vision titled "South Sudan: No Power-sharing without Political Reform" by Mahmood Mamdani, director of the Makerere Institute of Social Research.

Mamdani emphasizes that power-sharing alone likely means a return to the status quo ante.  The solution is to combine meaningful political reform with reconciliation and power-sharing.  Reconciliation without political reform would be no more than window dressing. 

South Sudan after Dismissal of Government

South Sudan President Salva Kiir dissolved the entire cabinet on the second anniversary of the country's independence.  He named new cabinet ministers on 31 July 2013, but has not yet named a new vice president.  In a 29 July 2013 commentary titled "South Sudan: Democratization by Dismissal?", Ahmed Soliman, research assistant for the Africa program at Chatham House in London, offered a somber analysis of South Sudan's future.  He concluded that "inadequate progress in development, ongoing insurgencies and concerns about governance and military influence have increased fears of state failure."