By Isaac Massaquoi
Let’s face it for Ernest Bai Koroma and Julius Maada Bio, election 2012 is nothing more than getting hold of state power and with that control the people and their resources. That’s what elections are really about for many politicians. Whether they are in Africa, Europe, Asia or the Americas. You will notice that I limited my statement to only two parties. The truth is, only APC and SLPP have any realistic chance of winning the coming elections.
Politicians would normally put on a nice face in public places but deep inside, they are being consumed by anxiety and the fear of being defeated or indeed thrown out of office and the inconveniences that come with that. It’s not easy.
For ordinary people who know that for them it’s a daily struggle to survive there’s a point at which their survival skills become well honed and they just get on with it. But for ministers and presidents, when they lose their jobs, they start life all over again.
When a minister is sacked, he is ordered to hand over his sleek official vehicle to the person taking over from him without delay. The former minister returns to his Peugeot 504 and because his weekly fuel allocation is no more, he queues up at petrol stations; he is told to move out of his official residence and be at the mercy of ruthless estate agents; all his staff including drivers, gardeners and cooks, are withdrawn. All those special assistants who hang around the big man with their yeliba (praising-singing) habits melt away. Those colleague ministers who survive the re-shuffle soon refuse to pick his call and all friends in high places also pull back.
Now look for the former minister trying to be a normal person again. It’s a sight to behold. Suddenly he begins to call his real friends again or even visit them. For five years he has refused to talk to them. The secretaries are trained to say the big man is in a meeting. All those meetings now end rather abruptly and our man becomes accessible again.
This is the best way I can put this so that we understand why the stakes are so high in countries like Sierra Leone and why some people resort to violence to keep their positions in government. Against all reasonable calculations, some of them continue to believe that their parties will stay in office and hence prepare no Plan B.
Civil Society Groups
Civil society people love elections. Left with them alone, we will be holding an election every year. These are the people who give the elections all sorts of characterization. Look at what they have been saying about Election 2012. This is the “most crucial” election ever; it’s “a make or break election” for this country; “this election will be marred by violence” and “marginalized women need special consideration.”
The next moment they are writing some of the best project proposals, asking for huge amounts of money to tackle these “challenges” facing the country in the interest of “democracy and good governance.” With the massive improvement in technology, hundreds of press releases are issued on a daily basis about everything, ranging from the possibility of stray pigs at Kroo Bay joining political rallies and ending up as pork chops on somebody’s dinner table to the inability of a political party full of charlatans to speak a language the people understand.
Inevitably, that press release lands on the table of editors of the many news-hungry media groups we have in Sierra Leone. The elementary rules of handling a press release are broken many times by the desire to fill airtime and space. So a press release that says nothing, lacking any true relevance to the big national questions, takes centre stage for at least 24 hours. It could be, especially if a talkative politician suddenly decides he needs the votes of Kroo Bay people. He becomes a PIGS RIGHT ACTIVIST.
The Media
Election time is also good for many ordinary journalists. All sorts of groups dig out money from underneath the Atlantic Ocean to organize one of those many feel good training exercises in elections reporting. The Journalists and their trainers collect small amounts of money to keep life moving. This workshop culture is becoming the biggest stumbling block to comprehensive, well-thought out media training programs in Sierra Leone. No matter what SLAJ says these workshops remain largely uncoordinated, with disjointed training modules and programme objectives.
A media trainer was once brought to Freetown for an elections training program. He is a good journalist but he wasn’t really prepared for the job. But he wanted the five thousand dollars, tax-free pay and five days all expenses paid trip, hotel and food. As his local counterpart getting a very disgraceful percentage of the visitor’s fees, I found myself doing more than I was asked to. I didn’t want the participants to die of boredom.
Then there’s the international news coverage of African elections. On election day it’s about high or low turnout; it’s about political violence; it’s about accepting the result; it’s congratulating the people for voting peacefully, as if they are dealing with vandals – very patronising coverage. This is mainly the job of our colleagues who land in Freetown on parachute and begin to report even before their backpacks are put into their hotel rooms.
So for example you will hear them say “many Sierra Leoneans believe that bla, bla, bla.” Those Sierra Leoneans is the taxi driver that took them into the hotel.
They spend all their time with election observers from around the world who come in about a week before the election and leave before the results are declared with their verdict. It is so predictable these days – the opposition will cry foul and the observers will agree that some rigging took place but it “is not enough to affect the final outcome.” In other cases, they will declare the elections out of touch with democracy – certainly neither free nor fair.
I can’t even remember what they said about that dynastic succession in Gabon, as bloody as it was, Ali Ben Bongo is a big statesman in Africa, hosted in France by the defeated Sarkozy. Laurent Gbagbo is not so lucky. Charles Taylor pushed his luck too far. Issayas Aferworki will have the same fate as Charles Taylor. His will be over his foolish meddling in Somalia.
Now the election is over and everyday journalists will flock to British Council to hear Christian Thorpe announce 5% of the result. Next day, another 5%, and then 15%. Meanwhile Independent Radio Network will be hammering away with results from polling stations, which soon make no sense with the caveat, “these are only provisional results.”
After three weeks, Christiana Thorpe will announce the final result, which would have been known on the streets anyway in advance. I just hope the biometric system will help speed up counting or whatever. Three weeks will be difficult to accept this time. Senegal has twice more voters than Sierra Leone and it’s just one hour away by air. They were finished within 48 hours. I believe we must also do the same.
While we wait for NEC to announce the result, the whole country will grind to a halt. Government offices will be empty, colleges will go slow –things will be in the wrong places. Speculation about everything will be favourite pastime and the economy will suffer badly. Sierra Leone’s political transition process is messy and leaves a lot of gaps in governance. Ernest Bai Koroma tried to work his way out of it but he could have gone one step ahead by putting in place a transition act. He can still do that on a Certificate of Emergency.
The result will finally be announced and lots of people will join a street party. Then it will be time for inauguration. Heads of State of other countries with their large delegations will come to Sierra Leone to celebrate and the elected president will make a long speech telling people what he will do in office. Ask them about that speech one year later, you will be branded an opposition sympathiser for your troubles. I suppose it’s the kind of speech they make for thrill of the moment. A lot of that takes place in politics, you know.
The presidents of France and Russia were recently sworn in. Is there another spending spree called inauguration coming? No.
In Africa, we have to stop spending money unnecessarily. We spend too much money celebrating and too little on health and education.
So after four weeks or more, the new ministers are “screened” by parliament and they start “familiarisation visits” to the different units of their ministries in Freetown and in the countryside. Then the new Ministers start bringing district and tribal delegations from their districts and regions to say thanks to the president for appointing somebody from a particular area. In some instances they encourage or blackmail the president into going to their districts to “hand them over to their people.” This is what I really don’t understand.
On the first day of parliament all the MP’s turn up in their party colours, further dividing the country along party and colour lines by that symbolic show of partisan loyalties inside the people’s assembly. Why, in God’s name, should MPs, despite what their parliamentary prayer says, put on such colours in parliament? How about those people whose parties do not make it to parliament, are they not supposed to be represented by those sitting there? I am still looking for partisan colours in the House of Commons.
While all this is happening, the ordinary people are getting ready to start another round of grumbling that will last for five years. The more I think about this ritual we call elections, the more I am completely disillusioned with the whole thing.
