Johannesburg — South Sudan elections scheduled for next year will go ahead as planned, according to President Salva Kiir. Kiir also confirmed that he will run for president in the December 2024 polls.

The country's elections were due to be held in February 2023, but the government has so far failed to meet critical clauses of the agreement between Kiir and its vice president Riek Machar.

Kiir has been South Sudan's only president since independence from Sudan in 2011. Before elections, the youngest country in the world needs to draft a new constitution and finish all preparations, including passing the National Elections Act in parliament and establishing the National Elections Commission.

After years of disputes between Kirr and his main rival  Riek Machar , the country signed a peace agreement in 2018 that led to power-sharing in a unity government inaugurated in February 2020, with Kiir as president and Machar as vice president. The term of the current unity government was originally set to expire in 2022 but last year, all parties to the agreement extended the mandate until December 2024.

Before the peace deal was signed almost 400,000 people died in a five-year civil war. Years after independence, the South Sudanese are still struggling to establish peace, and the country continues to battle flooding, hunger, violence, and instability.