National Elections Commission Preparing For Elections The Spokesperson of the Elections Commission on Friday said that the National Elections Commission has started preparations for the next elections. 09 September 2017 National Elections Commission Preparing For Elections Lawrence Sulubia Amin, the Commissioner for Civic and Voter Education [Photo by Jale Richard]
By Jale Richard JUBA, 09 September 2017 [Gurtong]-Lawrence Sulubia Amin, also the Commissioner for Civic and Voter Education said by starting the process of amending the National Elections Act and the Political Parties Act, the commission has entered the pre-election period. “The commission is in the pre-elections period,” he said. “We are now in pre-election period that is to say enactment of electoral framework and it needs dissemination. This time we need the dissemination to reach to the people and up to the constituency so that people are sensitized. We want all the stakeholders to be sensitized so that every citizen will know the meaning of elections,” he said. Apart from amendment of the legal frameworks, Amin said, trainings of the election commission is going on. Amin spoke in a discussion organized by South Sudan Network for Democratic Elections about amendments of the legal provisions in the National Elections Act and the Political Parties Act. Amin however acknowledges that there is limited time left for the end of the transitional period, but hopes the revitalization process will produce a positive outcome. “The government is talking of revitalization of the peace agreement. If it is revitalized, then everything is revitalized,” he said. “We are optimistic that when the security situation is improved, as now it is improving, we are hopeful that people will also come back and participate in the elections.” He said they have now started the process of amendment of the national elections act, and the political parties act, which are processes of the elections. “In all these process, we are optimistic,” he said. However, Gasper Amule of South Sudan Law Society, who presented a draft of the provisions in the elections act to be amended, said for elections to be democratic, there is need to first have a permanent constitution because the current constitution is limited to guide elections. He said it is practically impossible to conduct credible democratic elections within the remaining timeframe of the Transitional Period stipulated in the ARCSS. He recommends that IGAD extends the transitional period at least to 2019 to give time for the TGoNU to prepare for the elections. Provisions of ARCSS on elections demand that the Transitional Constitution of South Sudan 2011 (as amended), the Political Parties Act, 2012 and the National Elections Act, 2012 be amended, which have not been done. The agreement also demands that National Elections Commission and the Political Parties Council be reconstituted which have also not been done. Posted in: Home, Governance -- To post to this group, send email to southsudankob@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to southsudankob+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/d/forum/southsudankob View this message at https://groups.google.com/d/msg/southsudankob/topic-id/message-id For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "South Sudan Info - The Kob" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to southsudankob+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to SouthSudanKob@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/SouthSudanKob. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/SouthSudanKob/CAJb14oqjrFhhTfoZG1cakfTAJR1Z%2Bmo0ZucGLkfq8-Rm7Fm-SA%40mail.gmail.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
