President Salva Kiir Mayardit's government remains firmly ensconced in the country's capital, and the president himself is internationally recognized as South Sudan's legitimate leader. Meanwhile, his opponents — the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-in-Opposition, led by his former second-in-command, Machar — are headquartered in Pagak, a town in eastern South Sudan near the Ethiopian border. There, the opposition is debating whether to negotiate with Kiir's government.
At the heart of the dispute is a recent government initiative to add 28 new states to South Sudan — a move that would essentially carve up and weaken the opposition's power base. The opposition has deemed the measure a unilateral move that violates previous power-sharing agreements, calling into question Kiir's claims of wanting to implement a genuine peace deal. Kiir's opponents also disagree with the president over the concentration of power in the executive branch of the government.
Neither side is able to navigate South Sudan's political waters with complete freedom. Competing interests have pinned Kiir's government and Machar's opposition to their current stances on the issues in question, limiting their ability to reach an accommodation with each other. Though Kiir and Machar are certainly vying to advance their own positions, each remains beholden to his ethnic constituents, who will not hesitate to attack their respective representatives should their interests be undermined. Power struggles in both parties could worsen if the two leaders adopt any position that runs counter to the interests of their ethnic bases. Likewise, greater factionalization in either party would, in turn, put the latest peace talks in even greater jeopardy. The concern for the Machar-led opposition is that if a peace deal leads to the former vice president winning a post in a new national unity government, the cost would be to his ethnic constituents, who would see their homelands carved up and ruled by unilaterally appointed Kiir loyalists. If this happened, it could neutralize the ability of the South Sudanese opposition to mobilize against the government.
Little Desire for War
As difficult as achieving a consensus for peace may be, neither side wants the situation to devolve into open warfare. With an economy dependent on crude oil, the ruling administration has been nearly bankrupted by a combination of low oil prices, high transit fees on Sudanese pipelines and the country's ongoing conflict. Consequently, Kiir has little to no money with which to fund his government; civil servants are not receiving their salaries and the military is poorly supplied and ill equipped. Because of the pitiable state of the military, Kiir is unwilling to take on Machar in battle. The president has even requested Ugandan support to bolster the capital's defenses. Beyond limited regional backing, South Sudan is also unlikely to receive international assistance anytime soon.
Machar, for his part, faces an equally difficult set of circumstances. Though his opposition forces boast superior numbers on the battlefield, they have hardly any financial resources at their disposal. Given a lack of funding, their logistical train is their greatest weakness. Weapons supplies from abroad, including Ukraine, have dried up because Machar's fighters could not afford to pay for them. What support the South Sudanese opposition has managed to obtain from the Sudanese government, which hopes to interfere with Kiir's administration to gain an upper hand in oil and border security negotiations, is limited to self-protection. Machar could choose to increase his cooperation with Khartoum in exchange for more aid, but doing so would make him a pariah in the international community. Then again, refusing to work with Khartoum has prompted the Sudanese government to significantly restrict its support for Machar's party in the past.
The foreign mediators involved in South Sudan's peace talks will likely meet at the African Union summit that will be held in Addis Ababa at the end of January. It is likely that they will use the opportunity to push for the implementation of sanctions against Kiir and Machar in an effort to pressure the two leaders to reach a peace deal. But the impediments to such a deal are considerable, and though it is unlikely that South Sudan's civil war will resume, neither will peace come to the conflict-ridden country anytime soon.
