By Umaru Fofana
Two minority parties may be biting more than they can chew – being sometimes overly ambitious – but they also seem bogged down is some conundrum that does not look good for the health of a nascent democracy such as ours.
The National Democratic Alliance (NDA) has been around since the mid 1990s. It has made a very strong point and one that needed to be made – that members of the Fullah ethnic group who are erroneously perceived by many as foreigners, can in fact run for the highest position in Sierra Leone. But despite trying, trying and trying again the NDA has failed to create any serious impact in the country’s politics.
Now the newly established United Democratic Movement (UDM) may have taken off on the wrong footing in that it is apparent its founding was largely influenced by the governing party to eat into potential opposition votes, but barely one year since its founding the party has impacted on the country’s political landscape even if in Freetown only. Whether a Third Force can emerge from them seems highly unlikely. But with a bit of a show of independent-minded thinking and acting they have a huge potential ahead of them especially so because they seem attractive to young people in a country whose population is more of a younger one. But while that opportunity is being anticipated, their struggle continues and the problems persist for minor parties. What begs the question now is whether a viable alternative political party that can offer a workable alternative to the two dominant political parties in the country to the extent of the people taking the challenge to change.
Minor parties may not win overnight but they have been more useful in increasing attention to certain issues, than in having any serious chance of winning a national election. They bring new issues to the political agenda, issues that major parties may overlook. “They serve as a safety valve for the expression of protest with those dissatisfied with the two major parties”.
Whatever happens to the Third Force in this country whenever one attempts to emerge! And we need one. Nearly three generations on, we are about the only country in the West Africa sub region that maintains the two political parties, which dominated politics around the time of independence from the colonialists.
In some countries, such as Ghana, Nigeria, Gambia and Benin, the independence era parties have all but disappeared. In some others such as Ivory Coast, Senegal and Guinea they are either the third, fourth or even fifth force. Sierra Leone should be thinking seriously about this. It may not be far from good reasoning that the independence era political parties had one thing as ideology – namely establishing sovereignty from the colonial masters and self-rule. It is conceivable to think therefore to think that the longer independence advanced into the shadows, the need for these parties dissipated and their relevance relegated.
The thinking is that if the military coup of 1992 had not happened, free and fair elections held in 1992, which was very unlikely, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP-Sorbeh) and their leader Thaimu Bangura would have defeated the incumbent Joseph Saidu Momoh. That would have been a clean break from the dominance of the two political parties even if Bangura was not going to be a new player as he had served the APC party.
In 1996 Sierra Leone missed out on another golden opportunity. It is an opportunity to end what I consider a vicious cycle! A cycle that has seen the country revolve and hover around only two political parties – the All People’s Congress and the Sierra Leone People’s Party since independence. In that year the United National People’s Party’s candidate Dr John Karefa-Smart controversially lost in the run-off presidential election, deeming the light on the brightest chance for the emergence of a real winning Third Force. And with that loss the chance failed for at least another generation because six years later in 2002, the UNPP and their leader, Dr Karefa-Smart had disappeared into oblivion and they were barely noticed as contesters for the leadership of the country – not even for a parliamentary seat – despite being the second largest party in parliament in the run-up to those elections.
But events have a way of reliving themselves and history a way of repeating itself. In 2007 another party was born – the People’s Movement for Democratic Change. But this was a party born as much in anger and frustration against the then ruling SLPP party as it was built around the persona of one person – Charles Francis Margai. So when he failed to win he has kept oscillating, vacillating and gallivanting in and out of all the political theatre… Another chance slipped, another opportunity lost and another momentum botched.
Now the advent of the United Democratic Movement (UDM) should have been a watershed moment but sadly it is not. It is a bit of a poisoned chalice. Poisoned as much by what brings greed to those in power as what relegates those in the opposition – tribal and other narrow-minded interests in our country’s politics are eating us all up.
While in 2011 the NDA made themselves the most articulate party on national issues – through the singular efforts of Chernor Bah – that feat is being swept under their feet. Internal bickering by certain elements to career-assassinate and smother the growth of the young man whose depth has propelled the NDA party with whom his Socialist Party are in an alliance, seems to be reversing the once moribund party that had been rejuvenated by the sheer addressing of issues affecting the ordinary man and woman.
The other day I read headlines in some local newspapers that 27 members of the UDM had defected to the opposition SLPP party. Could not help but ask myself who the defectors were and what their motive was. One of them, it turned out, was a challenger for leadership of the party. My immediate thought and words to the SLPP was this: Just throw them away! They add nothing to your ticket! More importantly there is no guarantee they will not defect to another party. That’s the thing about crossing the political carpet, once one does so one is almost certain to do so again.
There is the extreme need to protect and build the capacity of minor parties. Like the major ones, our minor parties may not stand for anything different – ideologically or interest-wise – but they deserve to be there just in case the masses get really disgusted with our two main political parties after a proper understanding of their present behaviour towards the people who are only in their mouth and not on their mind in most policies they adopt or agreement they go into.
The thinking among people here, perhaps rightly so, is that it is unlikely to jettison these two parties because they are well entrenched within the main hegemony that has characterised the country especially lately. But the same thing was said about the Convention People’s Party (CPP) in Ghana, or the Democratic Party of Ivory Coast (PDCI) or the Socialist Party (PS) in Senegal. And barring the civil war in Ivory Coast these countries have made far more headway under the post-independence party eras.
Perhaps one way to make us get there is through a conscious effort to de-personalise emerging political parties by building them as institutions and not revolving them all around one person. The personality may be good for the ideology but the person will be bad for it. It destroyed the PDP, it punctured the UNPP, it emasculated the PMDC and it may just unravel the NDA and UDM.
