By Umaru Fofana
The last 12 months proved very eventful in Sierra Leonean politics. Hardly any dull moments. The first post-election cabinet that never was and left many wondering whether the long wait for it was worth it. The subsequent reshuffles that did not prove desirous to many and raised the question as to why certain people were sacked or appointed or even retained.
The fire incidents or "accidents" that happened - from the central bank to the central post office to the central airport. Scandals and allegations of corruption and the twists and turns in those cases and one case of old. The apparent political interference into the work of the police and the judiciary left us all wondering where our country's politics and the country itself were headed.
The main opposition Sierra Leone People's Party and their convention that left the party in near tatters with everyone wanting to be in charge of something that was actually nothing. In the wake of that emerged a de facto split within the party - both in and outside parliament - and the SLPP were left useless, failing to perform their role as an alternative structure for an administration that presided over many scandals and had so many shortcomings. In a nutshell last year was epitomised by the action and inaction of a ruling party and an opposition party that became arrogant, bullish, distracted, inept, inert, corrupt and disunited in more ways than one and talked down on any dissenter or a dissenting view.
Sadly, 2014 promises to be no less unproductive. More efforts will be spent on fighting among the political elite instead of crafting and implementing progress for the country. For the opposition SLPP it has started where 2013 ended off - internal wrangling with the proclivity to degenerate into further disunity. The decision of the Political Parties' Registration Commission regarding the party's 2013 national delegates' conference and a court action by the aggrieved party could make a rerun of the party's leadership election a strong probability.
Already the honeymoon that saw the colossus of the SLPP figure of Julius Maada Bio make Chief Somano-Kapen emerge Chairman and Leader of the party seems to have been over, as the edges fray. Thanks to suspicion that is sometimes sheer paranoia. The ripples could drag deep into 2014. If there are fresh party elections this year, as seems probable, Somano-Kapen will not be favoured by the Maada Bio Group that helped give him the job just a few months ago. There are concerns now within that section of the party that the chief's allegiance is shifting if not already and they are calling for his unseating. Shifting not away from his party, but from his faction within the party, it is speculated.
He may go the way the minority leader in parliamentary, Dr Bernadette Lahai is being forced to go just one year into her term. She seems dogged and determined, perhaps even bullish, to stay on. And she seems to have the backing of the judiciary even though those whose backing really counts - her colleagues on that side of the House - she does not seem to have. The fight could be messy. The establishment will back her if only to keep the opposition fractious and distracted so as not able to split through the hairs of the governing party. Even if she has to lose that job, she will not do so without a stout resistance. If it gets too messy, as I suspect it will, the party may expel her and write to the Speaker that she be sent out of the House as stipulated in Section 77/k of the country's constitution. The Speaker will likely refuse to accept that as he did in the case of Legacy Sankoh in the last parliament.
In the event Dr Lahai decides to resign her seat of her own volition she could join the APC in all but name and will be made minister as we were told by the Majority Leader it was suggested to her after the elections of last year, while her husband is made Principal of the Eastern Polytechnic. That is more than just two votes lost to the APC ahead of the next polls. And the by-election to replace Dr Lahai will be interesting. Her open opposition to her party will be very telling. And she cannot afford to stay neutral in view of her humiliation by her party and the fact that the APC likes open show of support for them.
This will be made all the more fractious, or maybe not, because another contender for leadership of the SLPP, Dr Kandeh Yumkella is expected to return and be based home this year. His campaign seems to be gathering pace. His support groups are sprouting up. Some people who were Bio diehards in 2012 are shifting towards the UN diplomat.
Once Yumkella returns home that effectively will signal the start of campaigning ahead of the 2017/18 elections. Interested candidates within the ruling APC and their supporters will challenge President Ernest Bai Koroma's apparent D-Noting which effectively muzzles the rights of those interested in succeeding him as party leader and presidential candidate. His authority will start to erode, unless of course he wants to purse the Third Term agenda which he has denied he is interested in but his henchmen keep talking about. If that turns out to be, his dictatorial swagger will deepen and worsen. Dissent will be crushed using state authority.
Be that presidential political Gagging Order at the last APC convention as it may, there are men and at least a woman who are crisscrossing the country and campaigning in all but name. But one new name that has surfaced recently is the head of a mining company. Believed to be a close confidant of the president, I have heard his name in a few places as a possible choice for leadership of the party. Some of the mentions were nuanced with vilification, while others will exaltation.
But incumbent Vice President Samuel Sam-Sumana is not sitting with his arms folded or legs crossed. Social media sites prove that he is working without saying so or some people are working for him. His strained relationship with his boss seems not have dampened his desire to succeed him or his self-belief in being able to achieve that and his subsequent ambition to become the first Vice President of Sierra Leone to become President. If anything it seems that has emboldened. Do not be surprised if he and Alpha Kanu are on the same ticket in the end. There will be more than one reshuffle of cabinet and administration in 2014, and that will reflect the internal power play and horse-trading.
The SLPP may be tinkering on the edge of precipice but the APC could witness a huge implosion of their own (making). And the signs will manifest themselves more apparently in 2014. Never mind the recent trips to Europe and America to mend fences. Charade. Window-dressing. And with the effect of the latest Emerson Bockarie KOKOBEH song sinking deep and hard, there are some elements within the party who are desperate to get going. Do not be too surprised if some of the aspirants decide to distance themselves from the Koroma administration in some ways. It will be interesting how that pans out.
Watch out for Constituencies 5 and 15 - in the opposition heartlands of Kailahun and Kenema districts respectively - and the recent controversial high court ruling that gave victory to the losers in the November 2012 polls. There may be political disturbances there with the constituents resisting their representatives. It may degenerate into some civil disturbances and the police will intervene in the all-too-familiar way and shoot at unarmed civilians and lock some up especially when they are opposition supporters.
Lawlessness will continue to flourish because those in positions of trust encourage the lawless people so long they are their supporters. So I do not take seriously this statement contained in President Koroma's New Year's Day: "We will build upon networks of goodwill but we will dismantle networks of indiscipline and lawlessness. Let me reiterate this resolution again, we will build upon networks of goodwill but we will crush networks of indiscipline wherever they are."
He had said exactly the same thing in the first week of January in 2013. The only difference being that he spoke then in Krio at State House when he was launching the failed Operation WID. There and then he called all of us lawless except himself. But I think we now have a better understanding of who stokes up lawlessness and covers it up. May we all survive all the odds this year is set to bring into our failed political system.
(C) Politico 14/01/14
