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Some South Sudanese have aired their fears that they may end up failing to vote due to the inability to acquire the national identification card—a primary document one needs to register as a voter.
With just eight months remaining to the country’s general election, some citizens are now growing impatience and anxious, citing the nearly impossible mission in acquiring the document.
Some of them who spoke to The City Review anonymously for their safety narrated how they had knocked on the doors of the immigration department for months without a breakthrough and they gave up. Juma (not his real name), a resident of Juba, said he has been struggling to frequent the immigration department offices for eight months and he is yet to get the card. The officers insist that he has not yet proven that he is a South Sudanese.
“I was asked to prove myself to the authorities if I am truly a South Sudanese, how am I supposed to answer such a question yet I am a South Sudanese,” he said.
“Now I want the government to tell us, how a South Sudanese is supposed to look like and in such cases…How am I going to vote now that the government have announced the registration for voters, will I vote or not,” he added.
Another citizen, a resident of Magwi County, in Central Equatoria State, also narrated how he has been making endless trips to the immigration offices in the capital, Juba, in a painful search for the card. After three failed attempts, Moses (not his real name), is now worried that his fears may be confirmed when he becomes ineligible to cast his votes.
“The registration to get a voter’s card, I hope, it needs an ID. Without ID, I don’t think if they will allow those without ID, really, to vote,” Moses said.
A majority of people with no Identity Cards recently returned to the country having fled the past outbreak of conflicts.
And there is skepticism from authorities, that not everyone seeking an ID card may be a citizen. “People whom we met there, at the place of nationality, but again, they are doubting us. That is another problem. The challenges arise at a time that the South Sudan’s Electoral Commission plans to embark on mass voter registration from June 2024,” Moses added.
The Spokesperson of the National Elections Commission, George Lemi, said there is no cause for alarm as they have contingency plans to send those with no ID cards to their chiefs for verification notes which they will use to register them.
“Getting a nationality ID is something different and it is an individual and personal choice. You might find an individual who has been in the country, who has access to the nationality but he doesn’t want or she doesn’t want. I may not force them to have because it is their right,” he said.
Lemi added that the commission may employ the services of local administration to do manual confirmation.
“To be eligible to vote, you must be eighteen years and above. You must be a national – which means having a national ID, or passport. If you don’t have one and you are a South Sudanese, your local chiefs are the right people to come and prove and identify you. To give you way or to approve you. At the polling centres, chiefs will be there for such cases.”
The Center for Peace and Advocacy (CPA), Executive Director, Ter Manyang, called on the government to heed the plea of the citizens. “Every citizen should have access to a national ID. This is a concern because getting an ID in this country is quite expensive,”
Early this week, the National Electoral Commission Chairperson, Prof. Abednego Akok, said the voter registration exercise will kick off in June.
“I will continue to awaken the citizens that sovereignty is yours, fair enough. But there are procedures which we want to be fulfilled. One of them is that, in your Boma, your Payam, your State…your name must be registered. That is voter registration which will begin in June,”
South Sudan is currently under a transitional government whose term is set to end in December 2024. The country finds itself in a tricky situation to deliver a first election that will usher in the first democratically elected government, thirteen years after it attained independence from Sudan.
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