Denay Jock Chagor

Denay Jock Chagor is a South Sudanese politician and the governor of Jonglei State since July 2020.

Chagor is a Lou Nuer. In 2015, Chagor became the deputy chairman and chief of general staff for the South Sudan United Movement (SSUM), a rebel group part of the South Sudan Opposition Alliance (SSOA) coalition. Chagor also became South Sudan's Minister of Higher Education on March 12, 2019.[1] After the death of Peter Gadet Yak, the founder of the SSUM, Chagor was appointed on May 14, 2019, as the temporary head of the movement.[2] The SSOA was divided into two factions after a leadership dispute in late 2018, but in July 2019 Gabriel Changson Chang's Federal Democratic Party merged with the SSUM's faction and named Chagor as chairman.[3] However, Chagor's leadership was rejected by six of the alliance's groups.[4] On August 31, 2019, Chagor suspended three SSUM officials for disobedience; however, his term as interim chairman had expired on August 16, 2019, leading to divisions in the group's leadership.[5] Chagor became South Sudan's Minister of Higher Education in 2019.[1]

As part of the R-ARCSS, the SSOA was allowed to nominate one governor, the governor of Jonglei State. However, the alliance could not agree on a candidate, as the SSUM's faction nominated Chagor, while the NDM's faction nominated Mahjoub Biel.[6] Lam Akol claimed that Chagor was ineligible to be a governor, as the minimum age for a governor is 40 and Chagor's passport said he was born in 1986, but Chagor insisted that he was born in 1975.[7] Finally, on July 15, 2020, president Salva Kiir picked Chagor as governor, removing him from the Minister of Higher Education position.[8][9] Jonglei State did not have a governor from February 22 to July 15 due to the dispute in the SSOA.