Conclusion

Since 2011 political positions in South Sudan have increasingly been seen as a question of ethnic ‘possession’. Given that politics has become ethnic, it is hardly surprising that ethnicity itself has become political, with the Avongara elite moving against Futuyo by casting him as an outsider, and Futuyo, in response, refashioning himself as a Balanda ethnic nationalist—a recasting that he recounted to a Small Arms Survey interviewer in the Pazande language.

The ethnicization of politics has set family members against each other and closed civic and political space in the state. Proposed elections in 2024 threaten to be explosive, because both Futuyo and Jemma Nunu see the current situation as a zero-sum contest. At present, however, it seems unlikely that Western Equatoria state will get to the stage of actually holding elections before it is convulsed by violence.