By Umaru Fofana
It is an incontrovertible fact that Sierra Leone’s political parties lack adequate internal democracy, something they badly need if good governance is to take a foothold in a country where every political party that has come to power has by and large behaved in as much the same way as the other.
This is because however a leader ascends to power so shall they rule the country or institution. So in the case of a head of state, if they do so through an open and fair democratic process so will they rule! If on the other hand they do so through suppressing dissent, creating a monster and other undemocratic means, so shall they govern the country.
This is why it is important that our parties are democratised so they don’t see the country as an extension of the political hegemony established in their party, and give birth to an oligarchy when or if they come to power. But often those who criticise the lack of internal democracy within their party are willing to play ball and defend such, if such undemocratic tendencies are carried out in their favour. I am sure many people come to your mind right now if you know a thing or two about our country’s body politic.
This is one thing which does not differentiate, much, our political parties from each other. Even within the two oldest parties – APC and SLPP – there is a democracy deficit. Although it is fair to say that on paper at least SLPP has a bragging right in terms of relative democratic credentials. The reality though leaves so much to be desired. The SLPP constitution obliges the conduct of elections to determine who the party’s candidate is for president or parliament. The APC’s allows for a travesty of democracy where a SELECTION process is constitutional.
I say the reality does not differ much because in the primaries to choose parliamentary candidates for the SLPP in 2018, many of the aspirants were cheated by the party's leadership who chose their preferred candidates and not the members'. In 2006, Ahmad Tejan Kabbah used the trappings of his presidency of the country to impose his Vice President Solomon Berewa on the SLPP party as their presidential candidate. He also imposed his foreign minister, Momodu Koroma on Berewa as his running-mate. The same way Ernest Bai Koroma did in 2018 when he shoved Dr Samura Kamara and Chernor Maju Bah down the throat of his APC party as their standard bearer and running mate respectively.
This is the tragedy of our political parties: certain individuals have at various times seen themselves as the owners of the parties imbuing a sense of entitlement. Not even the children and grandchildren of the late Siaka Stevens – founder of the APC and former President – or those of Sir Milton, Rev. Paul Dumbar, Newman Pratt, RB Kowa, Kandeh Bureh, Alikali Modu etc who founded the SLPP see themselves as such. The parties do not allow for dissent. It is worse in some than in others.
In view of how they chose Dr Kandeh Yumkella as their presidential candidate for last year’s election, even the National Grand Coalition (NGC) on which so much hope was pinned does not have the bragging rights over the two oldest parties in terms of internal democracy as witnessed by the way they chose their parliamentary and presidential candidates last time round. The latest SIERRAPOL report is probably not surprising. It shows that the NGC’s popularity rating is waning with more than half (55.4%) of those who voted for it in last year’s election not willing to do so again.
The ethnic nature of the country’s politics may have shut out NGC and its very impressive presidential candidate and his team, so much so that in the last 17 months since the elections many people seem to have recoiled and held on even more firmly to their ethno-political levers. But it is also safe to say that engagement of members and supporters in the democratic process by the NGC party has ebbed somewhat. But we shall return to that on some other day. That volatility of the average Sierra Leonean voter, in addition to the necessity for someone to lose a party leadership contest feeling fairly treated, is why the All People’s Congress party must accept those reforms that are being advocated for by the National Reformation Movement (NRM).
A friend of mine, who is a political neither-nor, told me recently that he would consider joining the APC or at least voting for them, if the NRM’s concerns were taken into consideration and acted upon. I have never seen a group of people in any of our political groupings so committed to their party yet challenging it from within – not defecting – as the NRM are doing. You can tell they are not in it to raise their stakes to be bought over by the ruling party or to splinter. No! The last time I saw anything any close to that was in the Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) and it did not take long before it led to the birth of the People’s Movement for Democratic Change (PMDC) party.
Among other things, the reason for that was the fact that it was led by one man, Charles Margai, who had his eyes firmly set one thing and only one thing – his presidential ambition – perhaps at any cost. A party built around one individual is bound to disintegrate in no time. Remember the PDP Sorbeh and Thaimu Bangura, or UNPP and Dr John Karefa-Smart?
In the case of the NRM, it is clearly not a political party and there is no obvious individual leading them for his own personal political ambitions. And it is also very clear that while it is a political movement it is an integral part of the APC party. Like the Tea Party is a part of the Republican Party in the United States. There is talk that one of the aspirants in the APC’s standard bearer contest in the last election is backing if not instigating them. But that is neither here nor there. It does not take away from the fact that the mainly young professionals within the party are determined to get the former president Ernest Bai Koroma and other old guards to hands-off the leadership of the party, and to have a clause that is generally regarded as undemocratic expunged from the party’s constitution.
That vexed clause allows for the SELECTION of the party’s candidates for legislative and presidential elections, in complete negation of the country’s constitution which obliges ELECTION for anyone to become a parliamentarian or president. On the face of it that does not need fighting over. But deep within, it is not as simple as that. That is the fight of the NRM to the extent they were not even allowed to meet at their party’s office in Port Loko when they last attempted to do so a few weeks ago. In a letter written by the APC Secretary General to the police, asking for their meeting to be broken up, the NRM were made to appear to be a political party separate from the APC. And in what appeared as a non-denial denial, the APC secretary general said no group existed within his party that was called NRM.
America’s Tea Party movement campaigned and still does for a fiscally conservative Republican Party. They espouse lower taxation as well as a reduced national debt which translates to a reduced government spending. Many credited them with the election of Donald Trump – rightly or wrongly. And the current Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, is one of them.
What the NRM are advocating for is far less contentious. In an article published in the Awoko Newspaper of exactly one year ago this week (15 September 2018), the NRM attributed the defeat of the APC to “arrogance, greed and selfishness of their party leaders” when they were in power. Not many people need lecturing on that. And it is that which led to the defeat of the SLPP in 2007 and may come to hound them again.
One of the NRM leaders, Osman Bilal Kamara, is quoted in the same article as saying thus: “As young people in the Party we have the right to look back and figure out the reasons why we lost to the SLPP”. And in what sounds like fighting for the soul of the APC, he said: “The APC is everybody’s party and no one individual or set of people must be allowed to hold the party to ransom. The selection clause in the APC 1995 Constitution has been abused by the party hierarchy…As a result of that we are challenging the party leadership for the right thing to be done and also for them to separate the position of the Party Chair and that of the flag-bearer. We are calling for fair play. The youth and grassroots of the Party have been side-lined for years by a selected few and they are the ones doing the dirty jobs.”
The NRM may not have the numbers to splinter and establish a formidable party – perhaps pretty much like the Tea Party. But listening to their demands can bring a lot more votes to the APC than the party’s current crop of leaders cares to admit in public. I look forward to the day when members of our country’s political parties will do what is right. That way they would have led the way for the electorate to consider the country and not self or tribal interest when voting. Then, only then, will we turn the dark curve that has blighted our democracy.
© 2019 Politico Online
