National ID issues plague South Sudan’s planned elections

Since gaining independence in 2011, residents of South Sudan have been working to build their country, the world’s youngest nation.

However, many citizens are concerned that a technical issue – the lack of a required national identity card – could prevent them from participating in the country’s first democratic elections planned for December.

Registration to vote will begin in less than two months.

“I don’t think they will allow people without ID to vote,” said one young man, who asked to be identified only as Alex for security reasons.

Alex, a resident of Magwe, Eastern Equatoria State, told VOA that he had gone to the immigration office in the capital Juba several times to collect his national identity card.

After three failed attempts, Alex begins to worry that he will be excluded from the upcoming election.

“The first challenge I faced was distance,” he said. “Secondly it’s financial because the cost of traveling from this end to Juba is a bit high.”

Leaders will identify voters

Ter Manyang Gatwidge, executive director of the Juba Peace Center, said receiving an identity card should be a routine matter.

“Every citizen should get a national ID card,” Gatwidge said. “That’s a problem because it’s quite expensive to get an ID card in this country. In order to vote, you have to have an ID card.”

Gatwech said the government should provide citizens with free national identity cards.

But South Sudan has no plans to issue ID cards to everyone. George Lemy, spokesman for the country’s electoral commission, said the commission may hire local managers to confirm people’s identities during voter registration.

“To be eligible to vote, you must be 18 years or older,” Lemmy said. “You have to be a national – that is, have a national ID card or passport.”

Lemi said if a person does not have an ID and is South Sudanese, local leaders can “come and prove your identity and give you [a] way or approve you. “

Elections scheduled for December

South Sudan’s elections were originally scheduled to be held in 2015, four years after South Sudan separated from Sudan. However, the country’s civil war and delays in writing a constitution forced the elections to be postponed several times.

Now, under South Sudan’s 2023 National Electoral Law, voter registration will begin six months before the June elections.

The election is scheduled for December 22. For the first time, South Sudanese will have the opportunity to vote for the president, members of parliament and a number of state and local offices.