By Umaru Fofana
This is not about the Nick Hughes movie about the genocide in Rwanda – 100 Days. Nor is it about anything that apocalyptic. This is about our democracy and how far it has matured, or not, over the years. But beneath the veneer of that democracy belies the acrid reality which moves people to vote ethnicity and region and not sincerity and nation.
In exactly one hundred days we are off to the polls. Again! It is one hundred days to that day when the law does not discriminate against anyone. It is that day on which no-one has immunity or impunity. The day on which the street beggar is as important as the SUV owner who drops coins for his/her survival. That day on which we decide the course of our country for the next 4 - 5 years. And so must we not let that be taken away from us by anyone – neither through a bribe nor harassment.
17 November has been in many people’s calendar. But not many would be thinking it is almost here. The day is perhaps the most important thing in the hands of especially the ordinary voters. Otherwise why do you think the politicians are clamouring to meet them and talk to them and even eat with them from the same bowl. After many years of hiding from the people driving in luxury cars with tinted windows or living in the Disapora, today they come to the poorest people in the poorest places. All to canvass for their vote.
Voting day this year, like in any other year, is pretty significant. And while the election management bodies are struggling to get their act together, so are the political parties. They are preaching confusing and convoluted messages if only to get the people’s heads wrapped in ignorance.
In the last few weeks I have been finding out about a few things chief among which is gauging the political temperature across the country. I can say with near certainty that the ruling All People’s Congress Party and the main opposition Sierra Leone People’s Party are more deeply entrenched today than they were this time in 2007. This is largely because the former now controls power and the latter buoyed largely because the People’s Movement for Democratic Change – which came as a third force – has all but dissipated. A larger number of its members are tilting towards the SLPP. But more than they would have done in the first round some five years ago, a significant number of them are off to the APC. Either way APC will do far better in the southeast than the SLPP will do in the north.
Such is how badly the SLPP will do in the north that it will be difficult – perhaps impossible – for them to field in candidates in some constituencies. Some may come forward for symbols especially because it is free for them to do so in the SLPP so long they are running in that part of the country, but like we saw in the 2008 Local Council elections, they will withdraw and decide to support the APC largely because it is the traditional party in the region and it has power and resources. That hardly happened to the APC in the southeast even when they were in opposition.
Two of the reasons the APC will do better in the southeast is because of the strides the party has taken to get some chiefs on their side – never mind how – and the fact that Kono district which is by and large a swing district, is far more APC today than it was in 2007. One of the reasons for that could be that even though he was there five years ago, the man next to the president is from Kono – Samuel Sam-Sumana. Judging by the UN report in the wake of the 2008 local council election, intimidation of opposition supporters in the district could play a significant factor unless the district records a high number of local and international observers through its length and breadth. And the roads are awful, it must be said.
From sources close to those who should know, Sam-Sumana is highly unlikely to be on the president’s ticket. It is a combination of the fact that he has not minded and mended himself well in the last few years and the conspiracy against him both within his own party and in the opposition. So Kono will prove decisive depending on which was the ticket reads. And the poll for Sam-Sumana’s possible replacement is too wide and deep. If he indeed does get changed, the same mistake Solomon Berewa made by announcing his running-mate late could haunt president Koroma. You don’t keep people second-guessing such for too long. It breeds bad blood.
For their part the SLPP are likely to get more votes in the south-eastern heartland than five years ago largely because of the PMDC factor, or the lack of it. Bonthe and Pujehun are far much greener today than they were in 2007. And this is not good news for the APC especially with Charles Margai baying for Ernest Koroma’s blood, figuratively speaking, the same way he did for Berewa’s.
Freetown remains the most difficult to gauge or discern. It is grossly blurred. There is an increasing number of youth and other groups sprouting up in support of the APC and its presidential and parliamentary candidates. Pretty much like we saw in 2007 when they mushroomed to “support” the then incumbent, Solomon Berewa. They are mostly young people who are eyeing money – nothing else. Some of them can honestly admit to you that it is the best – perhaps only – time to milk from politicians. “They would be gone again in a few months” a young political activist in Kingtom told me. And they do so with passion. It is fair to say though that there is disgruntlement among a lot of young people who feel their needs have not been adequately addressed. This could come to reduce the two-thirds of the votes for the APC in 2007.
Underlining and underlying all of this is the fact that a good number of the electorate is not well informed and is buried in primitive loyalty. The same mistakes made in 2007 are pretty largely bound to be made again this year. There is anger against many incumbent parliamentarians. And I will be shocked and surprised if more than a quarter of the current MPs survive. But the voters in a lot of these constituencies will make the same decision again, call it a mistake if you like, by voting for the candidate of the party they feel loyal to even if the other party’s candidate is whom they believe offers them a better future.
So as we gear ourselves to go out and vote in one hundred days, what do we want to happen to us? The answer to that could determine which was we vote. And the media and civil society must mind the politicians off the track of spewing the nonsense a good number of them and their surrogates have been putting out. Are you better off today than five years ago? If YES why not allow the same thing to continue. But if you are worse off today than you were five years ago, why must that continue? Only you wear your conscience, so decide as such.
In the interest of the masses, let the politicians be held to state what they plan to do and how they plan to do it. If the how does not add up, they themselves do not add up and must be rejected. Otherwise the decision we make in 100 days from today may haunt and hurt generations.
(c) Politico 09/08/12
