{"id":1961,"date":"2012-09-17T15:21:46","date_gmt":"2012-09-17T15:21:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africaresearchinstitute.org\/wordpress\/?p=1961"},"modified":"2016-03-21T12:49:08","modified_gmt":"2016-03-21T12:49:08","slug":"elections-in-sierra-leone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/africaresearchinstitute.org\/wordpress\/elections-in-sierra-leone\/","title":{"rendered":"The more things change\u2026 2012 elections in Sierra Leone"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the late 1980s, a common joke told on the streets of Freetown was: \u201cWhat did Sierra Leoneans read by before they had candles? \u2026 Electricity!\u201d By then, life expectancy in Sierra Leone was one of the lowest in the world. Infant mortality was amongst the highest. The literacy rate was just 15%. Since 1978, the country had been a one party state. The effects of a collapse in world prices for Sierra Leone\u2019s exports were compounded by decades of economic mismanagement and endemic corruption. When Albert Margai left office in 1967, after three years as prime minister, he was worth an estimated US$250m \u2013 despite receiving an annual salary of just US$4,000. In 1985, when President Siaka Stevens stood down, he is said to have amassed a fortune of US$500m. The Bank of Sierra Leone, in contrast, held US$196,000 in its foreign reserve accounts. Salaries of lower level public officials went unpaid. Hospitals, schools and roads fell into disrepair. In 1991, the United Nations ranked Sierra Leone\u00a0last of 160 countries in its Human Development Index<\/a>. The country was taking its final steps towards war.<\/p>\n

On the eve of the November 2012 presidential, parliamentary and local council elections, Sierra Leone is often depicted as a country unrecognisable from a quarter of a century ago. Since the civil war officially ended in 2002, consecutive national elections have been won by different parties. When\u00a0Ernest Bai Koroma<\/a>\u00a0and his All People\u2019s Congress (APC) party were elected in 2007, the incumbent Sierra Leone People\u2019s Party (SLPP) accepted defeat \u2013 albeit reluctantly. In 2005, the United Nations\u2019 largest deployment of peacekeepers \u2013 numbering 17,500 at its peak \u2013 was withdrawn. In 2012, Sierra Leone committed\u00a0850 peacekeepers to the African Union Mission in Somalia<\/a>(AMIS). International hotel chains\u00a0Radisson<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Hilton Worldwide<\/a>\u00a0have signed agreements to open outlets in 2013 and 2014 respectively. Free health care for pregnant women, nursing mothers and children under five was\u00a0introduced in April 2010<\/a>. According to some estimates, Sierra Leone\u2019s economy will grow by\u00a034% in 2012 due<\/a>, in large part, to the onset of iron ore exports.<\/p>\n

The achievement of voting the opposition to power in 2007 \u2013 an infrequent occurrence in Africa \u2013 was tarnished by virulent accusations of fraud and manipulation. The decision by the National Electoral Commission (NEC) to nullify votes cast at polling stations with over 100% voter turn-out provoked outrage from the incumbent party. Of the\u00a0477 invalidated<\/a>\u00a0polling stations, 426 were in electoral strongholds of the SLPP. The party accused the NEC\u2019s Chief Commissioner, Christiana Thorpe, and the international community of connivance in an orchestrated scheme for regime change. The NEC maintained that, in the absence of a provision in the electoral law specifying the body mandated to annul votes in instances of unambiguous electoral malfeasance, it had the\u00a0de facto\u00a0right \u2013 and responsibility \u2013 to do so. It also insisted that the annulled votes would not have affected the final outcome of the election. The SLPP countered that only the Supreme Court has the authority to cancel votes.<\/p>\n

For the 2012 elections, the principal way the NEC has sought to mitigate electoral fraud is by implementing a system of\u00a0biometric voter registration<\/a>. \u201cCredible elections start with credible voter registration\u201d, remarked Christiana Thorpe during a presentation at\u00a0Africa Research Institute in London in July 2011<\/a>. Rather than manually registering voters before each election, biometrics enable creation of a permanent electronic register which can be updated as new voters become eligible or existing ones die.\u00a0The system captures unique data \u2013 thumb prints and facial features \u2013 in addition to personal details, and can identify whether someone has registered more than once by centrally matching thumb prints. The NEC\u2019s determination to improve the integrity and transparency of the electoral process is laudable.<\/p>\n

The shortcoming of biometric technology is that it counters the symptoms \u2013 not the causes \u2013 of electoral fraud. Biometrics cannot detect whether a registrant is underage, or determine an individual\u2019s nationality. There is also no evidence of a deliberate strategy by any political party to rig elections through multiple registrations. All previous electoral registers have contained names of the deceased, the underage and foreign nationals \u2013 but the most significant type of electoral misdemeanour has been physical stuffing of ballots and false recording of results by temporary election workers. Both parties, when in power, have used their position to fund political campaigns and buy voters. This practice remains widespread. Political parties continue to organise and condone the intimidation of voters, often perpetrated by their youth wings. Biometric technology offers little scope to tackle these transgressions. Elections are more than just a technical exercise.<\/p>\n

For many, elections \u2013 and the preceding campaigns \u2013 provide the true measure of how Sierra Leone has progressed. As yet the fundamental character of political competition in Sierra Leone has not been altered. Identity, not ideology or policy, remains the paramount factor.\u00a0Ethnic and regional voting blocs<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 sustained by entrenched patronage networks and corruption \u2013 are as rigid as ever. The APC draws majority support from the Temne, Limba and other northern tribes, and Krios of the Western Area, while the SLPP are favoured by the Mende and tribes of the south-east.\u00a0Elections are regarded as \u201cwinner takes all\u201d<\/a>contests with defeat entailing exclusion and disadvantage for the losers, and their regions.<\/p>\n

The past is still utilised in pursuit of political advantage. Shortly after\u00a0Julius Maada Bio<\/a>\u00a0was elected leader of the SLPP in July 2011, there were renewed calls for an inquest into the December 1992 executions of\u00a026 people<\/a>\u00a0suspected of plotting to overthrow the government. The extra-judicial executions \u2013 by firing squad \u2013 were ordered by the National Provisional Ruling Council (NPRC), which had itself seized power by force in April 1992. Britain promptly suspended aid to Sierra Leone. Maada Bio, one of the chief architects of the NPRC coup, was heavily implicated in the executions. In January 1996, Maada Bio ousted NPRC leader Valentine Strasser and for a short time was head of state. With former members of the NPRC junta now prominent within the SLPP, the calls for an inquest were viewed as brazen politicalmanoeuvring\u00a0by Koroma and the APC.<\/p>\n

In 2011, when Michael von der Schulenburg, then Executive Representative of the UN Secretary-General in Sierra Leone, criticised the proposed inquest, relations with President Koroma soured. In 2012,\u00a0in a leaked UN document<\/a>, Schulenburg noted \u201cthere can be little doubt that the decision of the President to force my early departure will be seen \u2013 rightly or wrongly \u2013 by virtually every Sierra Leonean as an effort to remove a potential obstacle to his re-election and as an opening the door to manipulating the election outcome in his favour\u201d.<\/p>\n

Political parties still use violent means to achieve political goals.\u00a0Election campaigns for the 2007 elections<\/a>\u00a0were tarnished by clashes organised by the upper reaches of the APC and SLPP. A return to war was never probable, but President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah threatened to suspend the vote and impose of a state of emergency. On 9th<\/sup>September 2011, during a \u201cthank you tour\u201d to SLPP supporters, Julius Maada Bio\u2019s convoy was\u00a0pelted with rocks by mobs<\/a>\u00a0of APC supporters in the southern city of Bo. Maada Bio required stitches to the head. SLPP mobs retaliated by setting fire to the APC district office and residential properties. A\u00a0public enquiry concluded<\/a>\u00a0that the violence was both premeditated and orchestrated by elites of both parties. The government\u2019s\u00a0recent purchase of US$4.5 million<\/a>\u00a0of predominantly military grade weapons caused a public outcry due to suggestions that they were intended for the Operational Support Division (OSD) of the police \u2013 a force which within living memory had been used by President Siaka Stevens as a personal paramilitary unit. After much public \u2013 and international \u2013 pressure, the government transferred the weapons to the army for use by Sierra Leonean peacekeepers in Somalia.<\/p>\n

Sierra Leone remains beset with privation that pre-dates the civil war. Koroma\u2019s insistence that \u201cattitude is everything\u201d \u2013 a slogan ubiquitously plastered across billboards in the capital \u2013 offers little solace to Sierra Leoneans who were promised a \u201cpeace dividend\u201d. In reality, many people find themselves in a similar financial predicament to that of pre-war days. Hype regarding the country\u2019s economic potential and the unprecedented scale of investment in the mining sector have raised expectations \u2013 but offered few discernible benefits to ordinary Sierra Leoneans. The purchasing power of low income earners has halved since 2007. Food prices have spiraled. A\u00a0cholera epidemic<\/a>\u00a0concentrated in the slums of Freetown had killed 392 residents by September 2012. Youth unemployment remains endemic.<\/p>\n

Sierra Leone\u2019s 2012 elections are unlikely to reveal anything new about the country and its politics. President Koroma is expected to win a second term, but not because he has transformed the country\u2019s economy. The incumbent has deployed clever tactics, co-opting proxy parties \u2013 including the Revolutionary United Front Party \u2013 to carry out political dirty work, and enticing high profile SLPP politicians to defect, most notably veteran\u00a0Tom Nyuma formerly of the NPRC<\/a>. The contest is proving harder fought than Koroma \u2013 and many in the international community \u2013 anticipated. Efforts to dismiss Maada Bio as a relic of Sierra Leone\u2019s authoritarian past have met with resistance due to his popularity amongst \u201cyouth\u201d and the military. But despite his charismatic appeal, many in the country consider Maada Bio to have more style than substance.<\/p>\n

In Sierra Leone, the process of building a modern democratic state after a decade of war has been heavily contested. Important progress has been made, particularly in the area of electoral management. But legacies of identity politics, violence, corruption and inequality have been \u2013 and will continue to be \u2013 harder to overcome. While the economy has grown, it is structurally little different to its pre-war incarnation. The notion that African countries like Sierra Leone should pursue a model of \u201cauthoritarian developmentalism\u201d in order to hasten wealth and job creation is fanciful. Sierra Leone\u2019s government budget is minuscule, about US$500m per annum, most of which is from donors who insist on democratic and liberal economic reforms in exchange. The government is not in a position to adopt political and economic policies that will inevitably be unpopular with donors. Nor does it possess the human capital or institutions to successfully implement such measures.<\/p>\n

What is certain is that any further consolidation of democratic reforms will be intimately tied up with the state of the country\u2019s economy. But the imperatives of how to create employment and distribute wealth more equitably have been keenly avoided by Sierra Leone\u2019s political class.<\/p>\n

By Jonathan Bhalla and Sareta Ashraph<\/p>\n

Jonathan Bhalla<\/strong> is Research Manager at Africa Research Institute<\/p>\n

Sareta Ashraph<\/strong>\u00a0lived and worked in Freetown, Sierra Leone from 2003-2009. She maintains a keen interest in the country’s history and returns there regularly. Sareta is currently writing a book on the conflict in Sierra Leone.<\/p>\n

In April 2011, Africa Research Institute published\u00a0\u201cOld Tricks, Young Guns: Elections and Violence in Sierra Leone\u201d. To download a copy,\u00a0please click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Consolidation of democratic reforms in Sierra Leone relies on economic development, say Jonathan Bhalla and Sareta Ashraph, but strategies for creating employment and redistributing wealth have been overlooked.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[284],"class_list":["post-1961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-elections-in-sierra-leone"],"aioseo_notices":[],"yoast_head":"\n2012 Elections in Sierra Leone - Africa Research Institute<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Legacies of identity politics, violence, corruption and inequality have characterised elections in Sierra Leone\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/africaresearchinstitute.org\/wordpress\/elections-in-sierra-leone\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"2012 Elections in Sierra Leone - 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