(Reuters) – When South Sudan declared independence from Sudan in 2011 to a chorus of worldwide congratulations and celebrations, rebel-leader-turned-president Salva Kiir promised his people freedom and democracy.
Two years later, he fired his Vice President, Riek Machar, triggering a civil war that fractured his young nation along ethnic lines. Global and regional powers pressed for a settlement.
Now a decade on, Kiir’s administration has detained Machar, his longtime rival, threatening once again to ignite conflict in an impoverished country in the middle of an increasingly fragile region.
The debacle has underlined the depth of the ethnic and societal rifts that have plagued the country since its birth, and a series of failures to address those problems by a government that has always had Kiir at its heart.
There have been no elections or comprehensive moves to unify rival forces, both promised under peace agreements.
Tensions between Kiir’s Dinka people, the country’s largest ethnic group, and Machar’s Nuer community have lingered, with both men accused of putting tribal interests ahead of national priorities.
Kiir was “very taken with tribalism, he believes in promoting his tribe first,” former government official Jok Madut Jok, who served as undersecretary in the culture ministry between 2011 and 2013, told Reuters.
“This is a weakness for a national leader of a diverse country,” said Jok, who has criticised both Machar and Kiir and left his post to move back to the U.S. where he teaches at Syracuse University.
Kiir has previously spoken out against tribal killings and ethnic conflict and said his dispute with Machar is based on political, not ethnic, differences.
POWER PLAYER
Born in 1951 to a family of cattle herders, Kiir joined the southern rebellion against the Sudanese government in the 1960s in what would become Africa’s longest civil war.
He spent years in the grasslands and swamps of southern Sudan as a rebel commander, rising up the ranks as a military intelligence officer.
His ascent took place under the leadership of fellow rebel John Garang, who was widely hailed as the hero of the liberation struggle.
After Garang died in a helicopter crash in 2005, just months after the Sudanese government signed a peace deal with the southern rebels, Kiir took over the leadership.
He relinquished his military fatigues for a suit, and was rarely seen in public without a trademark black cowboy hat, after then-U.S. President George W. Bush gave him one in 2006.
Kiir lacked Garang’s charisma, but was a skilled operator. Between the 2005 peace deal and 2011 independence vote, he held the Sudanese government in Khartoum to its promise to allow an independence referendum.
And he kept southern Sudan united, granting amnesties and pardons to militia leaders and keeping the peace until the vote, which saw more than 99% of voters choose independence.
But that focus on unity is now a thing of the past, analysts say, pointing to a string of abrupt reshuffles in Kiir’s government and the intelligence services to ensure his hold on power.
“He has mastered the art of playing people against each other to build loyalty,” Abraham Awolich, former managing director of the Sudd Institute think-tank in Juba, told Reuters.
“That is how he has kept himself in power.”
SUCCESSION
According to a 2024 investigation by The Sentry, a United States-based watchdog, Kiir’s family members, including his grandchildren, own or control at least 126 companies in South Sudan, although Kiir himself was not named on any of those corporate documents.
Kiir’s office dismissed the allegations as “a deliberate witch-hunt designed to undermine the First Family and destabilise the nation’s unity.”
Last month, Kiir dismissed his intelligence chief and two of the country’s five vice-presidents, naming close adviser Benjamin Bol Mel as Second Vice President.
The move sparked speculation that Kiir, 73, was preparing Bol Mel, a businessman on the United States’ sanctions list for his links to construction firms accused of money laundering, to succeed him.
But Awolich said Kiir was unlikely to give up the presidency in the midst of an escalating power struggle with his old foe Machar.
“Kiir holds all the cards right now. And he doesn’t have any intent to relinquish power anytime soon,” he said.
(Reporting by Nairobi Newsroom; Writing by Maggie Fick and Ammu Kannampilly; Editing by Andrew Heavens)
