South Africa donates Toyota to African ally for first-ever elections

The South African government has donated a Toyota Prado to South Sudan in support of the latter’s first-ever democratic election.

The general elections are scheduled for 22 December 2026, however, South Sudan’s recently established National Elections Commission has highlighted that it lacks the necessary resources for the fair conduct of polls.

It requires certain laws to be amended, additional finances, as well as other equipment such as vehicles, it said.

This, after the country already postponed the elections for 24 months in 2024 for largely the same reasons.

South Africa duly heeded the call of its West African ally this time with the donation of the Toyota, urging it to ensure that the elections are held on schedule, reports SABC News.

“It gives me so much pleasure as an ambassador from South Africa to donate a Toyota Prado from the government of South Africa to the National Elections Commission in the Republic of South Sudan for the sole purpose of enabling the commission to do its work in preparing South Sudan for the much-awaited national elections in 2026,” said South Africa’s ambassador to South Sudan, Mahlodi Muofhe.

The donated Prado appears to be a fourth-generation model that was produced between 2009 and 2023 and is no longer on sale as new as it was replaced by the fifth-generation Prado in early 2024.

It’s unclear whether the vehicle in question was donated out of the South African government’s existing fleet or purchased exclusively for donation.

South African ambassador to South Sudan handing over the donated Toyota Prado

South Sudan gains independence

South Sudan gained independence in 2011 and has never had a democratic election for leadership.

It was embroiled in civil war since 2013 which continued until a peace agreement was struck in 2015, which included a commitment to conduct elections 60 days before the end of the 30-month transitional period, writes The Global Observatory.

However, this agreement was prematurely ended by the eruption of a second civil war in 2016.

Come 2018, a revitalised agreement on the Resolution of the Conflict in the Republic of South Sudan (R-ARCSS) ended the second civil war and provided for elections 60 days before the end of a 36-month transitional period.

Again, the commitment was not honoured, as the signatory parties decided in August 2022 to postpone elections for another 24 months to December 2024. Now, the signatory parties have again delayed elections for 24 months to December 2026.

Each time, the South Sudanese government reportedly claims that it does not have the resources to conduct fair elections, however, experts suggest that other motives are behind the continued delays.

For one, the elections will require the sharing of power between political parties which has been a source of instability among the signatories rather than peace.

The R-ARCSS furthermore disincentivises elections. The agreement has created a bloated Revitalized Transitional Government of National Unity consisting of 5 vice presidents, 45 ministers, and 650 members of the national legislature.

These are the very same individuals who are responsible for the elections, creating a serious conflict of interest as the transition of power could lead to many of them losing their posts.

It has also been suggested that the R-ARCSS in and of itself is a flawed, hollow peace agreement that was destined from the start to never be implemented, as the signatories were coerced by opposition parties into signing certain protocols against their will.

Finally, the R-ARCSS has no mechanisms to penalize and sanction signatory parties that obstruct or derail its implementation. Likewise, it has no mechanism to put an end to the agreement if the parties fail to implement it.

This makes the costs of non-implementation lower than the costs of implementation and further incentivizes the endless cycle of postponed elections.