In Sierra Leone for the 2007 Elections

Part 2: Issues and Strategies
By Dr. Peter A. Dumbuya, Associate Professor of History

In my previous posting, (found here: http://fortvalleystate.blogspot.com/2008/01/fvsu-professor-in-sierra-leone.html) I examined the nuts and bolts of the August/September 2007 elections in Sierra Leone. In addition to the presidency, the All People’s Congress party, led by President Ernest Bai Koroma, also won a majority of seats in Parliament, the national legislature. The party’s share of seats in the 112 ordinary-member legislature went from 27 in 2002 to 59 in 2007. Parliament also includes 12 paramount chief members who were elected on a non-partisan basis to represent each of the 12 districts into which the country is divided for local government purposes.

In anticipation of the elections, the British Broadcasting Corporation, a major provider of radio/television news and entertainment programs to Sierra Leone, conducted a survey of people’s knowledge about the elections, their priorities, and trust in local and national politicians. The BBC released the results in June 2007. My colleague, John L. Musa, forwarded a copy of it to me. I analyzed it, drafted a concise summary (or position paper) of the various issues, and e-mailed copies to John and party headquarters in Freetown for use by party leaders. We used modified versions of the paper to prepare for the vice presidential and presidential debates in the days before the elections.

It is interesting to note that the issues voters prioritized in the 2007 elections are very similar to the ones that are showing up in various surveys and opinion polls here in the U. S. in this presidential election cycle. Respondents to the BBC survey identified the following as the top five priorities of the current presidential term: education, water, electricity, roads, and peace and security. Closely following these were issues of economic development, poverty alleviation, combating corruption, agricultural development, and foreign policy.

The results of the survey presented both a challenge and an opportunity for candidates of the three major political parties, namely the APC, Sierra Leone People’s Party, and People’s Movement for a Democratic Change, to formulate a postwar strategy for development and national reconciliation. For instance, over 53% of respondents in eight districts and areas in which the survey was conducted had little or no trust in national politicians. Nevertheless, a majority of them saw the elections as an important part of the political process. The study also showed very low levels of involvement in organized social and political activities even though most of the respondents knew the three major political parties.

The lack of trust in national politicians stemmed in part from their inability or unwillingness to deliver public goods. In addition, respondents in six districts that were surveyed did not feel that their views were represented in political discussions by the major parties.

Low levels of trust in national politicians translated in cynicism about the ability of elected officials “to do what is right.” Because of that, it was not surprising to learn that most of the respondents did not believe that the government would respond to protests about “unjust laws.” The sense that the government would not respond to protests against unjust laws undermined confidence in the police and legal system.

The perception that one party is not different from the other on policy issues often creates a political environment in which the voter may find it difficult to choose which party he or she is going to vote for in an election. As the unfortunate events in Kenya have shown, voters often get around this challenge by casting their lot with parties from their region or ethnic group.

Our analysis showed that more than 80 percent of the 2.3 million registered voters cast ballots in the 2002 elections. In the 2007 elections, 2.6 million people registered to vote: 75.8 percent of them turned out to vote in the first round and 68.1 percent in the second round to choose the president.

We urged the candidates to make a very clear distinction between the failed policies of the past eleven years under the SLPP government and the promise of a bright and prosperous Sierra Leone with the APC at the helm. We emphasized people’s confidence in the electoral system as an agent of peaceful change and promised to broaden the decision-making process at all levels of government. Most important, the party made a pledge to give top priority to the issues respondents had identified, namely education, water, electricity, roads, and peace and security. This campaign strategy worked, but as we saw in the Democratic debate between Senators Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton, attempts to draw such sharp contrasts do not always succeed.

FVSU professor in Sierra Leone

In Sierra Leone for the 2007 Elections
By Dr. Peter A. Dumbuya
Associate Professor of History

The Aug. 11, 2007, presidential and legislative elections were the third set of elections to have been held in Sierra Leone since full scale civil war engulfed this West African nation in March 1991, and the first after the departure of United Nations peacekeepers. The civil war, during which an estimated 75,000 people were killed, was triggered when the Revolutionary United Front backed by Charles Taylor’s National Patriotic Front of Liberia, invaded Sierra Leone with the aim of overthrowing the All People’s Congress government of President Joseph S. Momoh in the capital city of Freetown.

Parenthetically, the work of British anti-slavery advocates like Granville Sharp and William Wilberforce led to the founding of Freetown in 1787 as the “Province of Freedom” for liberated slaves from the United States. It became part of the British Crown Colony in 1808. In 1896 Freetown was joined with the Protectorate of Sierra Leone which regained its independence from Britain in April 1961.

The military, led by young disaffected officers and soldiers from the war front, eventually ousted Momoh from power in April 1992 and established the National Provisional Ruling Council. In spite of a number of peace agreements, the civil war continued as the RUF expanded its war aims to include the removal of the NPRC and all foreign troops from Sierra Lone. In May 1997 and January 1999, the RUF, in collaboration with the military, seized power in Freetown and ruled briefly but with such brutality and destruction of life and property that President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, the winner of the February/March 1996 presidential elections, sought military assistance from Nigeria and the Economic Community of West African States to reverse the RUF takeover of power in Freetown in January 1999. The UN also sent in troops beginning in July 1998.

Following further RUF rebel advances toward Freetown in May 2000, the British government led by Tony Blair deployed an expeditionary force to Freetown initially to evacuate British and European Union nationals. This force ended up fighting a group of rebels holed up in a village about 35 miles from Freetown, and freeing hundreds of UN peacekeepers the RUF had held as hostages. British military intervention paved the way for the UN to expand the number of peacekeepers to 17,500 by the end of 2001. In January 2002, the government officially declared an end to the civil war. The first post-conflict elections were held in May of that year.

As a historian and a native Sierra Leonean, I have always taken a keen interest in the history and politics of Sierra Leone, more so when fighting began in 1991. I had visited Sierra Leone in 1996/97 and 1998 at the height of the war. I had never participated in direct electioneering campaigns for anyone before. So when a friend of mine (we attended the same primary and secondary schools in Kono District), an attorney by the name of John Lansana Musa, called to ask for my assistance with the 2007 elections, I was excited and promptly accepted the invitation. In Sierra Leone, unlike the U.S., election campaigns can only begin after dissolution of the national legislature, Parliament.

Initially, the National Electoral Commission had set July 28 as the date for the legislative and presidential elections. But for one reason or the other, the president did not dissolve Parliament until June. So the chairperson of the NEC, Dr. Christiana Thorpe, reset the date to August 11. Official campaigning for the elections began on July 10. There was no campaigning a day before the elections. In order words, campaigning and individual rallies for the 11 political parties that participated in the elections ended on August 9, 2007; August 10 was a day to cool things off. I arrived in Freetown on July 27 and returned to the U.S. on August 13, two days after the elections.

Unlike what is happening in Kenya since the presidential and legislative elections of Dec. 27, the elections is Sierra Leone passed off peacefully. In the first round of voting, no presidential candidate garnered 55% of the votes cast as required by the 1991 Constitution. In the run-off election the candidate we worked with, the leader of the All People’s Congress, won the presidency by a simple majority (he won by more than 54%) as required by the constitution. He is now president of Sierra Leone for a five-year term. In my next posting, I will discuss the issues and strategies that won the election for His Excellency President Ernest Bai Koroma.