Salva Kiir Mayardit

After deploying troops to Juba in March he tweeted: ‘The Ugandan People's Defence Forces only recognise one president of South Sudan: HE Salva Kiir...

The simmering conflict south of the border has also spilled north with elements of Machar's SPLM-In Opposition (SPLM-IO) faction reportedly sympathetic to the SAF while President Salva Kiir Mayardit has cultivated ties with the UAE – widely seen as a key Rapid Support Forces (RSF) backer – prompting speculation about shifting allegiances...

Salva recently appointed his daughter Adut Salva Kiir as Senior Presidential Envoy on Special Programmes – a role previously held by Benjamin Bol Mel now Second Vice-President and Deputy Chair of the SPLM-IG (AC Vol 66 No 17 Salva's family values)...

President Salva Kiir Mayardit has strengthened his control over his government's economic ministries by appointing his eldest daughter Adut Salva Kiir as a senior economic advisor and dismissing two key economic ministers...

In July Salva Kiir undertook a 10-day state visit to the UAE...

The offer was made after a phone call between Trump's special advisor on Africa Massad Fares Boulos and South Sudan's President Salva Kiir Mayardit we hear (AC Vol 66 No 8 How Trump's in-law shut down the Kinshasa lobbyists)...

Salva Kiir is warming to the idea; offering sweetheart deals to US firms to invest in the country's oil and gas the infrastructure for which has been damaged by fighting in neighbouring Sudan...

South Sudan's President Salva Kiir Mayardit is the latest African leader to enlist a Republican-linked lobbying firm on K-Street hiring Scribe Strategies & Advisors on a six-month $500 000 contract...

The UAE's influence in South Sudan is believed to be represented by the new First Vice-President Benjamin Bol Mel who also serves as the First Deputy Chairman of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement (SPLM) and is believed to be the custodian of President Salva Kiir Mayardit's business interests (AC Vol 66 No 8 Ailing Salva ups the ante)...

Amid visible signs of worsening ill-health President Salva Kiir Mayardit has been moving to protect his authority and succession just as the house arrest of First Vice-President Riek Machar Teny Dhurgon and his wife Angelina Teny on 27 March raises fears of renewed civil war as fresh fighting breaks out (AC Vol 66 No 7 Salva sidelines Riek)...

This is not a departure but rather a continuation of Kiir's strategy since the signing in 2018 of the R-ARCSS which has been to undermine the deal without definitively breaking it by delaying military integration weakening armed and political opposition and creating parallel centres of power within ethnic communities (AC Vol 65 No 18 Poll hopes fade &Vol 65 No 20 Salva Kiir extends his rule as the oil cash runs out)...

Analysts suggest that President Salva Kiir Mayardit is positioning himself to finally sideline his long-time rival Machar with whom he has shared power under a fragile 2018 peace deal...

The SPLM-I0 argues the arrest invalidates the 2018 peace deal with President Salva Kiir Mayardit...

Citizens UN officials and western diplomats are infuriated by the failure of President Salva Kiir Mayardit's government to reach agreement with other parties to hold national elections due in December...

Originally scheduled for July 2015 the elections were postponed for three years due to clashes between the main protagonists: President Salva Kiir and First Vice-President Riek Machar Teny Dhurgon...

And new hold-outs emerged including Salva Kiir's chief of staff General Paul Malong Awan and Machar's chief of staff Gen...

' Talks this year between Salva Kiir and rivals in Nairobi finally agreed that elections could not be held without a new constitution...

During the China-Africa summit this month Salva Kiir met with officials of the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) which has a 41% stake in South Sudan's Dar Petroleum Operating Company to discuss structural reforms in the industry and diverting output to a pipeline via Ethiopia and Djibouti...

That could leave President Salva Kiir Mayardit with little choice but to extend the tenure of the transitional government for a second time...