President Salva Kiir has urged political parties and stakeholders not to derail the country’s path toward the December 22 elections, saying the ongoing political dialogue should focus on achieving peaceful and credible polls.
Kiir made this appeal while officially officiating the two-week Inter-Party-Political Dialogue in Juba on Thursday, as political parties and other stakeholders gathered to discuss the way forward toward the scheduled elections.
“This inter-party dialogue is not a place for negotiations and disagreements. It is not a place to shift the direction of the path that we have taken. It is not a place to hold us back,” Kiir said.
He stated that the government had already completed the legal roadmap and was making progress on the administrative, logistical and security aspects of the electoral process.
“The journey towards a general election consists of four critical roadmaps. One, the first is the legal roadmap, which has now been achieved. Two, the second is the administrative and logistics roadmap, which is also progressing well. Third is the security roadmap, which is also progressing well,” he stated.
The President stressed that the fourth roadmap, the inter-party dialogue, should focus on election-related matters and help establish a clear path toward a peaceful vote.
“Instead, its main purpose is for all of us to agree on a path to a peaceful and credible election,” he stated.
The dialogue comes just two days after Kiir dissolved the Revitalized Transitional Government of National Unity, including the national legislature and state governments, and removed all five vice presidents before appointing a caretaker administration.
The move has raised fresh questions about the future of the 2018 peace agreement, which established the power-sharing transitional government and provided the framework for the country’s transition to elections.
Caretaker Minister of Cabinet Affairs, Martin Elia Lomuro, defended the dialogue as part of the process of preparing South Sudan for an elected government, while lauding Kiir for allowing the political engagement to take place.
“We, therefore, Your Excellency, we thank you for your leadership, for providing us the political space for this dialogue to take place,” he stressed.
However, the dialogue has been opened without the participation of key figures from the camp of detained First Vice President Riek Machar.
Machar’s camp has yet to issue a public statement on Thursday’s launch, while Stephen Par Kuol, a former senior SPLM/A-IO figure who broke with Machar’s camp in April 2025 and later emerged as leader of a separate faction, is participating in the dialogue.
The rift adds another layer of uncertainty to talks intended to build political consensus around the December 22 election.
Peace monitors have repeatedly called on South Sudan’s leaders to preserve the 2018 peace agreement and resolve outstanding political and security issues through dialogue.
On September 9th, 2026, the Reconstituted Joint Monitoring and Evaluation Commission (R-JMEC) stressed the need for an inclusive political process as the country approaches the end of the transition.
Kiir’s appeal places the dialogue at the center of a critical question: whether political actors can use the dialogues to resolve outstanding election-related concerns without reopening the fundamental decision to proceed toward the December polls.
Meanwhile, regional and international guarantors of the peace process have yet to issue a formal collective response to Kiir’s dissolution of the transitional government, leaving uncertainty over how the latest political changes will affect the implementation of the peace agreement and the planned elections.