Will Non-Violence Elections Work in 2012?

Concord Times (Freetown)

John Momoh

15 June 2011

opinion

Freetown — As the crucial 2012 Presidential and Parliamentary Elections get few months away, many Sierra Leoneans that are conscious that if real democracy is applied in the electoral process either the opposition SLPP or the ruling APC party would be poised to clinch a victory, have started asking themselves as to whether the values of democracy would be adhered to by all stakeholders concerned in conducting a transparent and violent-free credible elections.

This concern is being raised because making elections transparent is not a burden on the shoulders of the National Electoral Commission (NEC) alone, but other stakeholders such as participating political parties, especially the SLPP and the APC – both of which have the majority of supporters throughout the country. Most elections in this country have in the past been saturated with one form of vote rigging or the other, such as the use of party thugs to achieve political ends.

In the candid assessment of many, several ground-works have been laid and mechanisms put in place to ensure that the 2012 General Elections in the country will be flawlessly transparent. It is expected to be a landmark and historic elections considering that an accord of peaceful coexistence and commitment to non-violence has already been intervened between the ruling APC and the opposition SLPP since the alleged APC thug attack on SLPP Headquarters on the day of the re-commissioning of the Eastern Police Clock Tower during which there were allegations of SLPP female office workers being raped. Presidential guards were also accused of molesting some journalists who had gathered at the compound of State House awaiting the outcome of the peace talks brokered by the UN Secretary General’s Special Representative and President Koroma.

Has the dust of intra-political party violence now settled now that elections are some months away? Indeed the calm and serenity that characterized the elections that were conducted in 1996 that catapulted Alhaji Ahmad Tejan Kabbah to power, and the Proportional Representation (PR) elections in 2002 that gave Kabbah a second mandate, at a time that APC stalwarts were at logger-heads with each other for the leadership of the party and the 2007 Elections prior to the holding of the 8th September Presidential Run-off elections between the SLPP and the APC. The chain was let loose on political violence on the day the Presidential Run-off election results were announced, with the APC leader as winner on the 15th September 2007.

In the views of many Sierra Leoneans the major weakness and the major strength of Ex-President Kabbah’s personality and style of leadership was his marked degree of leniency. In fact some analysts feel that the ex-President’s adherence to respect for democratic and reconciliation values was a factor why the SLPP fell from power. Certainly democratic values equally became an aspect of President Ernest Bai Koroma’s leadership quality, given that at a point in time he bowed down to the whims of critics within the party by organizing a national APC party convention in Port Loko whereby those who meet the criteria to campaign for the party leadership were given the free hand to contest.

After all what every patriotic Sierra Leonean is yearning for is that democracy should prevail especially in electoral matters. There is no gainsaying that some of the essential elements of every democracy constitute the holding of transparent and credible elections and creating the environment for a free and vibrant press serving as the watchdog of the society. So far President Koroma has been making it a priority the creation of a democratic environment for the holding of transparent 2012 Presidential and Parliamentary Elections. Many journalists who remember his marked simplicity towards journalists consider him as a friend of the press. In fact he has personally helped many journalists in need that have been calling on him for assistance to the extent that some APC stalwarts are disdainful of the continuing influence of journalists on this government.

What many people are expecting is that as the contents of the UN brokered peace accord between the SLPP and the APC indicate there should henceforth be no recourse to political violence, as that accord even went further by demanding the dismantling of political party thug groups. In other words like the 2007 Presidential and Legislative elections, the 2012 elections should equally bear the mark of transparency.

This hope is buttressed by the often repeated assurances made by the Chairperson of the NEC, Dr. Christiana Thorpe that over the years she had accumulated experience in conducting transparent elections. There may be strings of a sigh of relief in the NEC boss’s words of consolation, given that in some of the NEC conducted elections either at the Paramount Chieftaincy, Local Council and Parliamentary by-elections level, stakeholders such as the leadership of the SLPP, the APC and the PMDC or the NDA have come out with position statements that the elections were transparent and conducted in peaceful atmospheres without any voter intimidation or harassment.

Essentially stakeholders in the electoral process need to have confidence. This is because the elections that brought the SLPP of Tejan Kabbah to power and the one that raised the APC back to power are classic examples showing that in politics nothing is impossible or be taken for granted. Few political analysts ever nourished the notion that President Kabbah would win the 1996 PR Elections, considering that the SLPP was so much suppressed in opposition, especially during the one-party state era that many Sierra Leoneans were generally shying away from associating themselves with the party. But a very hardworking and determined Alhaji Kabbah with his late wife, Patricia firmly by his side thereby neutralizing public opinion and with the blessings of God, he transformed and resurrected the dying SLPP into a formidable political force to reckon with. He succeeded in mobilizing a large segment of the society across ethnic and regional divide, such as

Christians and Muslims as well as the Northern Province and the Western Area and Kono district to identify with the Green palm tree. At that time the APC was extremely weakened by the coup that toppled it from power and the wave of witch-hunting that followed.

Many people are heaping praises on President Koroma given that his commitment to win over areas considered SLPP strongholds in the Mende dominated Eastern and Southern Province has to a large extent been done persuasively rather than the use of force. Many APC stalwarts are thinking in the same line as the President that in the coming 2012 elections APC victory in areas considered SLPP strongholds will to a large extent depend on the level of development initiatives that the government will implement in those areas. This is why many Chiefs in those areas have publicly declared their intention to vote for the APC, not only for the speedy completion of the Masiaka to Bo and Bo to Kenema highways but for breaking off with the lethargy of the past to undertake the rehabilitation, coal-tar and modernization of at least ten roads in every provincial headquarter city and five roads in every district headquarter town.

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