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South Sudan runoff 2027

Polling day · date tentative · local times in Africa/Juba (hover for UTC) · last verified 2026-09-24

Held only if no presidential candidate on 22 Dec 2026 obtains "fifty percent (50%) of the valid votes plus one vote or more"; then the NEC "shall hold a second round election between the two candidates with the highest number of valid votes ... within sixty (60) days of the original polling date" (National Elections Act 2012 s.45; NEC FAQ: two-round system). The date 20 Feb 2027 is an ESTIMATE, not an NEC date: it is the 60-day legal limit (a Saturday), chosen because first-round final results may take up to ~39 days after the provisional count under ss.111-114. The Sep 2026 amendment's text was not read and may change this. The National Legislative Assembly has no runoff.
RaceBodySeatsPolls closeNowCounting authority
President (second round)head-of-stateScheduledNational Elections Commission

President (second round)

Count stages

StageExpected fromExpected byReplaced on the live pageConfidenceBasis
election-night — estimateSecond round; its date is an ESTIMATE (see conditional), so every window here shifts with it. Polls: closing hour not found. Neither the 2012 Act nor the three NEC regulations online (code of conduct, observers, campaign) set polling hours; the polling regulations are not published. ESTIMATE 17:00 CAT (UTC+2, no DST), from the only in-country precedent: the Jan 2011 Southern Sudan referendum ran 08:00-17:00 local (Al Jazeera, 9 Jan 2011). Elections Act 2012 s.107: presiding officers declare and post each polling station's result right after the count; s.110: the NEC "shall issue regulations providing for immediate dissemination of provisional results including those aggregated by the Commission", published in the Official Gazette, the media and at NEC offices. The Act sets no deadline for the aggregated provisional result. ESTIMATE, weak precedent: South Sudan has never held its own election. In the 2010 Sudan elections (polling 11-15 Apr 2010, extended from 13 Apr) the Sudan NEC declared the Southern Sudan presidency on 26-27 Apr 2010, 11-12 days after polls closed (UN UNifeed, 27 Apr 2010; Wikipedia gives 26 Apr for the national results). The window runs to the end of day 17 after the second-round polling day, CAT, because of the Christmas/New Year holidays and because voter registration had not started by 24 Sep 2026. NEC provisional results are the count here; polling-station posters are not. They stay on until the final declaration, whose date is unknown, so no replacement time is set.
final-result — estimateSecond round; its date is an ESTIMATE (see conditional), so every window here shifts with it. Elections Act 2012: objections to the provisional result "within seven days of the declaration of provisional results" (s.111(2)); the NEC decides them in ten days, extendable (s.111(3)), and publishes decisions within three days (s.111(4)); appeal to the Court within seven days, decided within ten days, final (s.112(2)); the NEC declares final results after the appeal period "within a period not exceeding forty eight hours" (s.114(1)). That is 9 days after the provisional result if nobody objects, and 39 days if every step runs to its limit (more if the NEC extends s.111(3), or if the Court orders polls re-run in cancelled centres, s.113: up to 60 days, and no final result until then). ESTIMATE: opens 9 days after the earliest plausible provisional result and closes at the late provisional bound plus 39 days, rounded later. These are the 2012 deadlines; the 2023 and Sep 2026 amendments may have changed them (not read). Settle on the NEC's declaration of final results (also gazetted, s.114(3)), not on provisional totals. The Court's appeal ruling (s.112) comes before this declaration, so there is no separate court stage.

Sources

URLRoleKindCan answer a results questionLast check
nec.gov.ss/frequently-asked-questions/timetableotherno (no election or results marker)not checked yet
mojca.gov.ss/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/National-Elections-Act-39-of-2012.pdfcalendarotherno (election page without a results marker)not checked yet
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_South_Sudanese_general_electionsee-alsootherno (election page without a results marker)not checked yet
nec.gov.ssauthority-homeemb homeno (site root: cannot answer a results question)not checked yet

Questions and answers

When is the South Sudan runoff 2027?
Polling day is 2027-02-20 (tentative). Held only if no presidential candidate on 22 Dec 2026 obtains "fifty percent (50%) of the valid votes plus one vote or more"; then the NEC "shall hold a second round election between the two candidates with the highest number of valid votes ... within sixty (60) days of the original polling date" (National Elections Act 2012 s.45; NEC FAQ: two-round system). The date 20 Feb 2027 is an ESTIMATE, not an NEC date: it is the 60-day legal limit (a Saturday), chosen because first-round final results may take up to ~39 days after the provisional count under ss.111-114. The Sep 2026 amendment's text was not read and may change this. The National Legislative Assembly has no runoff.
When will the final result of the President (second round) race be official?
Expected between 2027-02-28T22:00:00Z and 2027-04-18T21:59:59Z (UTC), confidence estimate. Second round; its date is an ESTIMATE (see conditional), so every window here shifts with it. Elections Act 2012: objections to the provisional result "within seven days of the declaration of provisional results" (s.111(2)); the NEC decides them in ten days, extendable (s.111(3)), and publishes decisions within three days (s.111(4)); appeal to the Court within seven days, decided within ten days, final (s.112(2)); the NEC declares final results after the appeal period "within a period not exceeding forty eight hours" (s.114(1)). That is 9 days after the provisional result if nobody objects, and 39 days if every step runs to its limit (more if the NEC extends s.111(3), or if the Court orders polls re-run in cancelled centres, s.113: up to 60 days, and no final result until then). ESTIMATE: opens 9 days after the earliest plausible provisional result and closes at the late provisional bound plus 39 days, rounded later. These are the 2012 deadlines; the 2023 and Sep 2026 amendments may have changed them (not read). Settle on the NEC's declaration of final results (also gazetted, s.114(3)), not on provisional totals. The Court's appeal ruling (s.112) comes before this declaration, so there is no separate court stage.
Where are the official President (second round) results?
No single-election results page is recorded yet. The counting authority is National Elections Commission (https://nec.gov.ss/).

Data

Provenance: researcher agent 2026-09-24: NEC FAQ and news pages (nec.gov.ss), NEC date announcement of 22 Jun 2026 (Sudans Post, Radio Tamazuj), National Elections Act 2012 ss.45, 107-114, 117-123 (MoJ text), Elections (Amendment) Act 2026 reports (Radio Tamazuj 21 Sep, SSBC 21 Sep, UBC 22 Sep 2026), Al Jazeera 23 Sep 2026, 2010 precedent (UN UNifeed 27 Apr 2010), 2011 referendum hours (Al Jazeera 9 Jan 2011), Wikipedia (CC BY 4.0 (Election Index)). Cite as: Election Index, "South Sudan runoff 2027", https://electionindex.org/election/south-sudan-presidential-2027-r2, dataset 2026-09-24.4702fd43.