By Umaru Fofana
There are hardly any dull moments in Sierra Leonean politics. But recent developments perch on a pedestal close to unprecedented proportions.
After the elections of June 2023, the racour deepened with the main opposition APC party crying foul. Nothing was strange there – after all never since the reintroduction of multiparty politics in the country has the main opposition party admitted defeat. Not in 1996, not in 2002. In fact the most ridiculous was in 2002. Even when SLPP’s Ahmad Tejan Kabbah secured 70% of the vote then as dividends of his ability to bring back peace to the country, his main challenger, APC’s Ernest Bai Koroma, cried foul. So did UNPP’s Dr John Karefa-Smart. I interviewed both men at the time and they left me wondering whether they were daydreaming by suggesting that they should have won. That was the most decisive election in the democratic history of Sierra Leone and will probably never be surpassed. It was almost akin to Ronald Reagan defeating Walter Mondale in the 1984 presidential election in which he won in 49 of the 50 states. Only Minnesota voted against him. Kabbah and his SLPP won the councils in the heartlands of the APC including in Kambia, Tonkolili and Port Loko.
In June this year, therefore, nobody was surprised that the opposition candidate, Dr Samura Kamara, faulted the election. But we may never get to know the basis of his victory claim when they never presented their case in court.
But that dispute is one that will dog the second term presidency of Julius Maada Bio. Having boycotted governance for months, the APC party eventually took up their seats in parliament and at the councils after mediation efforts by ECOWAS and the Commonwealth, working with the country’s Peace Commission.
While those gains were about to be cemented came an attempt to overthrow the government on 26 November. The government has pointed accusing fingers at the opposition. In a meeting with a visiting ECOWAS delegation that flew in on the following day, President Bio said: “My party campaigned extensively and won the 2023 elections, but when the results were announced, the main opposition could not accept it. We agreed to dialogue all in the name of peace, and yet again, they decided to cause mayhem. This is not the first time, they did it on August 10, holding weapons and killing police officers, and yet, called it a civil protest”.
It has to be said that the APC denied any involvement in the events of the 26 November and strongly condemned them. But the bickering has rumbled on. And it is bound to continue through 2024. Whether this means that the agreement that returned the APC to governance is dead or still alive is a matter of conjecture. The United Nations newly appointed Resident Coordinator, Seraphine Wakana has expressed optimism saying her meeting with the two parties on 19 December was “good”, and that she was “very pleased by their commitment to continue working together”.
That may all sound like an appeasement in view of what I believe will be a rocky political relationship between the APC and the SLPP in 2024. The former president, Ernest Bai Koroma, is suspected by the police to have a hand in the attempted coup of November for which is being investigated. At the same time the Court of Appeals has ruled that the former president has questions to answer in an outstanding matter around corruption which he denies. With this, it is hard to see his APC party cooperating with the government in any way at all.
Add to that the fact that the party’s presidential candidate in 2018 and 2023, Dr Samura Kamara also has his own fish to fry with the Anti-Corruption Commission over the sale of a /mining company when he was finance minister, and the handling of funds to rehabilitate the country’s Chancery Building in New York.
That said, I would not be surprised if the APC decided to cooperate fully with efforts to secure electoral reforms. But rightly or wrongly the APC will continue to clench their fists in 2024 largely due to what Koroma and Kamara are currently facing.
Someone who will hold no clenched fists in the new year is Dr Kandeh Yumkella. The born and bred SLPP man left his father’s party and set up with some progressives in the lead up to the 2018 elections and ran for president under the National Grand Coalition (NGC). Earlier this year he declared for the incumbent president and has since returned to the SLPP.
Rumours persist that KKY, as he is fondly called, has an understanding with President Bio who has put him in charge of a huge infrastructure project. The understanding, if you believe the rumour mills, is that KKY will receive the backing of the president as he pursues his ambition to become president by leading the party into the 2028 race. How much leeway he has in the new year to deliver on his clean energy odyssey could give us an idea of which way his political pursuit is headed.
These speculations come as the country’s Chief Minister, Dr David Moinina Sengeh, seems to be being aided by the president in ways that are bound to leave tongues wagging. The MIT-trained innovator, who was thoroughly effective as Minister of Basic and Senior Secondary Education, has been put in charge of many things presidential lately. Among other things, he receives foreign diplomats and negotiates on behalf of the government. He seems to have even surpassed the influence wielded by the first man on that job, Prof David Francis.
But while all that is happening, questions remain as to the role of the country’s Vice President, Dr Mohamed Juldeh Jalloh. He is the man who is many people’s favourite in government, cutting across the political divide. Once again, the self-effacing former UN man finds himself in the same position as he did in the early days of the Bio presidency. But as always, he takes one step at a time and remains unflinchingly loyal to his boss. The way he navigates the choppy political waters in 2024 and on, will prove decisive.
And the First Lady may just have some political ambition of her own. Her extraordinary involvement in and influence over the politics of SLPP is a pointer to the fact that she is a force to reckon with. Whether or not she wields the same influence as she did in the immediate aftermath of the June elections, will manifest in 2024.
But the APC will not sit by, believing as many of them do, that it is two terms for SLPP and two terms for APC, at any one time. Whether Dr Samura Kamara will seek a third mandate from the party will start being manifested in 2024. In an interview I had with him, he declined to say that he would not run again, saying that would be a decision for the party to make.
But he is an ageing man. Younger politicians in the APC may want to prove defiant if the old guards insist on maintaining the Samura ticket. But his popularity among the party’s grassroots must not be underestimated.
Among the potential aspirants to be on the party’s presidential ticket could be the man who was Kamara’s running-mate in 2018 and 2023, Chernor Maju Bah aka Chericoco. He has learned the robes of politics in a way nobody should underestimate. And if SLPP ditches the current Vice President, Chericoco will have a powerful argument to make with the Fullah vote, the third largest block in the country’s electoral demographic. He will either reset his political tone in 2024, or clog the passage on the flute.
But the country’s former Vice President, Samuel Sam-Sumana still harbours presidential ambitions. Having fallen out with his boss, Ernest Bai Koroma, in the most spectacular of manners, he ran for president under the Coalition for Change (C4C) party in 2018, a party that has died in all but name. He later returned to the APC where he faced a civil war. But he remains steadfast, hoping that his bellwether and swing home district of Kono will make him attractive. And there are some movers and shakers in the party who are on his side of the ring in what promises to be a real political boxing match.
The Freetown Mayor, Yvonne Aki-Sawyer definitely has presidential ambitions. In the run up to the June polls, she canvassed to become the running-mate. But the fact that traditionally a Christian presidential candidate cannot have a Christian running-mate militated against her chances. Plus, the speculation then that she no longer enjoyed the favour of Ernest Bai Koroma who more or less singlehandedly made her his party’s mayoral candidate in 2018. That Koroma aura is one that Chericoco enjoys to this day.
But nobody should discount Joseph Kamara, the former Attorney General and Koroma’s current lawyer in his current battles. He is a Bombali man who may become THE Bombali Man. All APC presidential candidates, barring Siaka Stevens, were born in Bombali district. From JS Momoh, Eddie Turay, Ernest Bai Koroma to Samura Kamara. Samura Kamara is now from Karena District following the redrawing of the geographical map when Koroma was in power. If that trend continues, Joseph has a real shot at securing his party’s ticket. How he handles Koroma’s cases in court will endear him to his former boss the more, which could translate to political favours from a man who still wields tremendous influence in the APC.
But economics and politics could meet again in 2024. The cost-of-living crisis could continue amid the high unemployment rate and harsh economic reality. How Bio tackles these twin situations and tries to accomplish his Feed Salone manifesto promise, could ease the choppy political waters or turn them into a tsunami. But with the treason trials dominating next year, it is unlikely there will be many political troublemakers or much political troublemaking. But this is Sierra Leone.
Happy New Year!
Copyright © 2023 Politico (22/12/23)
