South Sudan: The Root of the Crisis Is Constitutional Not Ethnic

Any lasting peace deal must bear in mind the political underpinnings of the ongoing violence and dismantle South Sudan's centralised, high-stakes, zero-sum political system.

Last Friday, President Salva Kiir and former Vice-President Riek Machar signed a peace deal in Addis Ababa, renewing tepid hopes that the crisis in South Sudan will soon draw to a close.

The breaking of the ceasefire in the days since the agreement, however, suggests there is still some way to go.

On the one hand, part of this difficulty no doubt arises from ongoing animosity between the country's two largest ethnic groups, the Dinka and the Nuer.

The violence, which began last December^[1], has largely occurred along these ethnic lines and has led to the deaths of over 10,000 people and the displacement of over 1 million.

However, on the other hand, it is crucial not to underestimate the political and constitutional underpinnings of the crisis.

The power structures in South Sudan, codified in the transitional constitution of 2011, centralises an inordinate amount of power in the office of the President.

This ultimately undermines a system of checks and balances and establishes a system of 'winner-takes-all' politics. Understanding how this political structure contributed to widespread violence will be necessary if the current fighting is to be halted and prevented from repeating.

Crisis in the constitution

In understanding how the violence began, it is important to note the political situation in South Sudan prior to the crisis.

The tensions between Kiir and Machar did not burst forth unannounced, but rather can be traced to the changes to the transitional constitution of South Sudan made in 2011.

Though billed as 'technical' changes^[2] to the 2005 transitional constitution, the revisions were sweeping. The 2005 constitution, developed in light of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, granted significant authority to districts and laid the foundation for a system of federalism following the scheduled referendum.

The 2011 changes "rolled back federalism," according to Kevin L. Cope^[3], a visiting professor at Georgetown Law, and concentrated power in the national government.

References

1. ^{^} December (www.thestar.com)
2. ^{^} 'technical' changes (jurist.org)
3. ^{^} Kevin L. Cope (jurist.org)