UN warns that South Sudan faces ‘existential crisis’ ahead of uncertain polls

In a volatile region, few areas are more hostile than the flatlands surrounding the South Sudanese town of Abiemnom. Four miles north-east of it lies the border of the oil-rich Abyei region, where spasms of violence have left scores dead this year.

Slightly further on is the border with Sudan, which is engulfed in civil war. From there, the notorious paramilitary Rapid Support Forces are moving steadily closer.

To the east are the armed “criminals” of Warrap state, responsible for a series of murderous raids on Abiemnom this year. South and west offer little respite; there lie the militias of Unity state, recently accused of slaughtering civilians.

This corner of the world’s newest nation serves as a microcosm of the maelstrom of ethnic rivalries and historical enmities threatening to tear South Sudan apart.

Tasked with keeping a lid on Abiemnom’s tensions are 72 UN peacekeeping troops in a modest outpost that opened in May on the outskirts of town.

This country is in a state of some anxiety … we don’t know what electoral system there’ll be

Nicholas Haysom, head of Unmiss

“It’s dangerous here,” confirms Capt Enkhtuya Ariunbold, 27, peering through the barbed wire topping the base’s perimeter.

Ariunbold hails from the world’s coldest capital, Mongolia’s Ulaanbaatar , where temperatures can reach -40C (-40F). Here, it was 35C early in the morning. Sweat drips from his nose.

He gestures towards a rickety bridge, the boundary of Warrap state. “The criminals come over in armed rigs, shooting at residents, taking their cattle. We’ve not been shot at – so far.”

But a new threat is now emerging, one Ariunbold appreciates could bring trouble from every conceivable direction.

South Sudan is preparing to stage its first election as an independent country. What should have been a unifying coming-of-age moment for the embryonic state is fast becoming a source of mounting anxiety.

The vote was conceived as the finale to a peace agreement signed five years ago to pull the nation from a civil war that left at least 400,000 dead.

All the signs, however, suggest the country’s preparation for such a complex, logistical undertaking are nowhere near sufficient.

Senior UN officials warn that any election interpreted as unfair, corrupt or simply incompetent risks pushing one of the world’s poorest states back into nationwide conflict.

Nicholas Haysom , the head of the UN mission in South Sudan ( Unmiss ), cuts an anxious figure in his frugal quarters in the capital, Juba.

Haysom has 14,000 peacekeeping troops stationed across South Sudan in an attempt to prevent a slip into another calamitous civil war, but recently requested another battalion – an extra 1,000 soldiers.

He says South Sudan – which acquired independence in 2011 – is facing an “existential” crisis.

A chronic food crisis , the pressures of hosting 700,000 refugees from Sudan and a decline in aid for a country where three-quarters of people require humanitarian assistance are all testing the state’s viability.

The rupture of a crucial oil pipeline in Sudan might be the final straw. Oil is the glue that holds South Sudan together, with its export accounting for nearly 90% of government revenue . The economy is in freefall.

“I want to underscore that the prospect of a second war in this region of the kind we’re witnessing in Sudan would be absolutely catastrophic,” Haysom says.

He is not alone in worrying that against such a tumultuous backdrop, South Sudan is not ready to hold its first post-independence election.

Originally set for December – no date has been finalised – the first warnings that preparations were behind schedule were sounded in April. There has been scant tangible progress since then.

Last week Haysom told the UN security council that the country had not prepared sufficiently for elections in December.

Earlier he told the Guardian that the uncertainty over the vote was sowing unease across South Sudan. “Academic literature shows that elections are one of the most likely triggers for relapse into conflict in society,” he says. “This country is in a state of some anxiety.

“We don’t know what electoral system there’ll be or whether there’ll be voter registration [or] what the complaints machinery will be.”

No one still knows what form the elections will take. “There’s very little progress in completing a vision of what the elections would look like,” Haysom told the UN .

The uncertainty is deterring donors who want assurances that their funding will support a fair and transparent process. It is an ambiguity that, according to Haysom’s most senior military commander, is generating significant stress among the population.

Lt Gen Mohan Subramanian, the Unmiss force commander, described his troops as operating in an “election-related politically charged atmosphere” and that a country awash with 320,000 weapons had entered a “critical period for its peace and tranquility”.

Studying a map of South Sudan liberally marked with hotspots and potential flashpoints, Subramanian said: “The worst-case scenario, hypothetically, is a relapse to countrywide violence.

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“More realistically it is a relapse into far more widespread concurrent waves of violence in multiple states.”

UN troops are based at 27 locations. A strategic UN review suggested 36 were needed.

But Haysom says the South Sudanese are desperate for the democratic process to begin. “All the polls or surveys have shown that the South Sudanese want elections, even though they suspect it may come with some violence,” he says.

Back in Abiemnom, Ariunbold is finishing the morning patrol. From one of the town’s biggest buildings emerges the county commissioner, Matiop Dau Deng.

Quick to berate the Mongolian over the state of the town’s only road, Deng’s mood soon brightens. “We are very grateful you are here, the situation is much calmer. But you must know that here, things can change very quickly.”