By Mustapha Kamara Jnr
There is a big question over the readiness of the main opposition, the Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP), to win in the coming elections and rule after the All People’s Congress (APC) party.
The party’s unending internal disputes, ever since it lost in the 2012 elections with Julius Maada Bio as its flagbearer, have left both supporters and non-supporters questioning its readiness to beat the incumbent APC at the much anticipated polls in 2016 and 2018 and deliver what for which many Sierra Leoneans think the latter is a failing party.
SLPP’s disputes have ranged from discontent among its members of Parliament over an impeachment of its leader in the House, through tensions between and among aspiring candidates of the great position of flagbearer involving the widely popular Maada Bio and the clever UN diplomat Kandeh Yumkella, to a petition against results of the 2013 convention.
The intra-party tensions have therefore left senior party members striving to restore calm and a common purpose in the party, though the efforts of some of the party old guard seem waning against flaming conflicts.
At a news conference last week Wednesday at the party headquarters in Freetown, a senior member of the party, Rtd Bishop Joseph Christian Humper, said tension had led party supporters to question the readiness and capability of the party to consolidate its efforts in providing a formidable challenge in the local elections due in 2016 and the presidential and parliamentary elections, expected in 2018.
“Party supporters at all levels are convinced that SLPP today is fragmented and polarized along camps that are driven by individualism and personal interest,” the retired bishop said.
Humper is a former bishop of the United Methodist Church in the country and he served as the Chairman of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), a key organ that helped Sierra Leone reclaim peace after the 11-year civil war.
He was delivering a keynote address at the conference about an intra-party dialogue on the party unrests. The conference came after the Supreme Court granted an injunction in favour of Alie Bangura ordering the party’s national executive to cease all upper or lower election activities until ruling was heard.
Alie Bangura, a former High Commissioner to Ghana in the government of the late Alhaji Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, is challenging his expulsion from the party by their national executive. The expulsion came on the ground of “indiscipline”, after Bangura sued the national executive of SLPP, challenging results of elections that saw Somano Kapen win against him in the race for chairman of the party, in the 2013 Bo convention.
Humper said at last week’s conference that their supporters had expressed the feeling that the division in the party was creating unnecessary tensions amongst camps of potential flag bearer candidates of the party.
Humper is the Chairman of the Technical Facilitation Team, a team set up in 2014 to investigate the instabilities in the party. He is also a member of a team selected by the Political Parties Registration Commission (PPRC) to look into the SLPP instabilities.
His keynote address at the conference was based on his findings from a tour across the country in which he solicited the opinions of party members about the party disturbances.
“Despair has engulfed the primary voters and supporters at the regional, district, constituencies, zonal and diaspora membership of the party,” he added.
Last year Humper revealed that his peace project would require about $50, 000, to restore calm in the party.
The SLPP protracted disputes, which many of its senior members say are emanating from APC’s efforts to destabilize the opposition, have left voters in the capital and the provinces with the feeling of disillusionment towards the party.
“It would be devastating if the party is not able to address its internal problems before the elections,” said Foday Jimmy, a grassroots supporter of the party in Freetown.
For Jimmy, it is “most unfortunate” to hear news about conflicts in his party.
“May be there will be hope for the party to win the forth coming elections, but that could be possible only if the party is united,” he said.
Most traders in the Freetown central business district are seen as supporters of the ruling APC, but some of them also think the SLPP is not preparing to win elections.
Abigail Sow, a petty trader at Garrison Street in Freetown, said the ongoing rift in calm in the party could drive away potential voters.
Sow opined that the disputes between and amongst members had divided grassroots members of the party, who constitute majority of the supporters of the party.
“SLPP members should be united so they would be able to work to improve the party,” she said
The civil society is also concerned that the main opposition is engulfed in intra-party disputes, even though the next general elections are almost only two years away.
Campaign for Good Governance (CGG) believes conflicts in the party have hindered the party’s ability to perform its role as the main opposition party in the country.
“In a democracy you need a vibrant opposition,” CGG’s Executive Director, Valnora Edwin told Politico on Monday, by phone.
“We are very concerned with the ongoing internal issues in the SLPP as a lead opposition political party. They need to organize themselves in order to become a formidable force.”
Edwin added that the intra-party issues in the SLPP had been there for long, “affecting democracy and good governance in the country.”
The Chairman and leader of the party, Somano Kapen, said at the conference that the party had been faced with serious challenges in the past few years.
“The party is now faced with choice; the choice between hope and despair, between victory and defeat” he said, calling on his members to unity.
The youth wing of the party urged its national executive members to implement Humper’s suggestion of hosting an intra-party dialogue.
(C) Politico 11/08/15
