By Umaru Fofana
You don't throw the baby with the bathwater, it is said. When we are reminded about it we respond testily insisting we always remember not to. And when we are not, often times we do do it and by the time we realise it the baby is in problems.
The year was 2007, in the US state of Pennsylvania. The venue was Drexel University in Philadelphia. The Democratic Party debate for the presidential election in the following year was happening. One of the star guests who even drew a smile from both Obama and Clinton was a man who was credited for leading the campaign of the man who many in the hall and indeed in the broader US society believe won the presidential election in 2000 - Albert Arnold “Al” Gore.
I cannot recall his name now but he had served the party and Gore's candidacy in 2000. Those elections are remembered for many things by many people. In addition to the fact that Gore got most votes amounting to over 48% and George Bush got around 47%, the country's Supreme Court decided who had won. In that election, a candidate for the Green Party who believed in the protection of the environment denied the United States the man who would have become its most environmentally friendly president. In fact, the Greens prefer a Democratic White House to a Republican one.
Ralph Nader, who had as his running mate the environmental activist Winona LaDuke, won 2,882,995 votes (2.74 %) of the popular votes. Just a few dozens of those votes in Florida would have given Gore the state's 25 electoral votes and he would have won. Consequently the Green scuppered the chances of one of their own from winning.
It was president Ernest Bai Koroma who told me in an interview that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. I wonder how many people have considered the impact of the advent of the United Democratic Movement (UDM) on the outcome of the local council by-election at Fourah Bay some ten days ago. According to the National Electoral Commission the opposition Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP) candidate got elected by 19 votes over the APC candidate. Consider two things: the UDM and its members who are sympathetic to the APC party, polled 27 votes. It presupposes that if they had not put up a candidate most if not all of their votes would have gone to the APC and they would have won the ward.
As the November polls approach have APC leaders asked themselves how their apparent allies in the UDM could affect their chances of winning the presidency, I've been asking myself. Unlike in the US where electoral votes are what count here it is popular votes that do. Could it be that the high-thinking APC strategists are out of strategy not to see through a plot they are working on that could lead to their undoing.
The SLPP under Ahmad Tejan Kabbah killed the PDP Sorbeh and allowed the northern votes to consolidate. That is perhaps one of the biggest accounts for the resurgence of the APC. The PDP leader Thaimu Bangura and his successor Osman Kamara had both surrendered the party to president Kabbah much to the disapproval of the grassroots in the party who returned to their base – the APC. To avoid that silly mistake the party has done all it can to keep the PMDC alive. But while it failed to keep the heart of their former allies in the closet, it is evident it supported the formation of the UDM if only to keep some disgruntled members of the PMDC away from the party and away from the SLPP where there are more likely to return to.
Mohamed Bangura, a significant figure in the PMDC at its early stages is becoming even more relevant in the hands of the APC. But how they handle him may prove costly. UDM functions I have attended have been graced by people who are otherwise APC. But the more impression keeps being kept that they are a different entity the more some of them end up voting for the party. And any vote for the UDM is almost certainly a vote against the APC. In a presidential contest expected to be closely fought – and make no pretence November polls will be a close fight – every vote counts.
In 1996 Sierra Leone would have got its first female presidential candidate. But Jeredine Sarho-Williams later endorsed Yahyah Sillah and urged her supporters to vote for him. Even that open call could not stop her from being voted for. So should UDM call it quits? That will send them into political oblivion.
Again in 2002 when PDP Sorbeh under Osman Kamara chose to endorse incumbent president Kabbah they said they would contest only for parliamentary seats. I have heard in the past that the UDM does not intend putting up a candidate for president. They should probably hear this: The moment a party pulls out of a presidential contest where both elections are held simultaneously it loses the attention and relevance it so badly needs.
How the APC handles the UDM question and whether or not it takes a cue from the impact of Ralph Nader on the presidency on Al Gore will help answer certain tricky questions for both parties...and even for the SLPP. And with less than ten months to go they should be drawing up a strategy before it gets too late. As my dad would say, late sleep can never be found.
The ruling party could have had all the good intentions for themselves to support the PMDC even in helping fund their party conference but the implications have not been favourable as had been predicted. They may have also had very good intentions for helping form the UDM but that could also be counterproductive.
Even more tricky is the fact that the more time advances, the more UDM and its supporters become emboldened even if not that consequential in terms of forcing a run-off. But they may just bite the proverbial finger that feeds them. And the party is full of young men, which is not a bad thing, and it is impressive how they have steered clear of violence despite their youthful make-up. But the youth in them and their lack of political experience may harden their resolve to press on as day breaks. If the outcome of the Fourah Bay local council by-election has not taught the APC any lessons in relation to how the UDM may have cost them that seat, the nothing else will.
