By Umaru Fofana
Among other things, when he was in the opposition, Ernest Bai Koroma and I often discussed how Solomon Berewa and his then governing Sierra Leone People's Party would use state machinery and resources for his campaign. The police, the vehicles, and possibly money made in his capacity as Vice President. But how have things changed in this regard with Ernest at the helm?
While you mull over the answer to that question, you probably do not need much brain-teasing to have noticed that Sierra Leone and the United States have at least one thing in common this year. It is that thing that makes the former the power that it is – democracy. But for our situation, let us call it elections. Both countries will be voting in November for president and parliament. Like in the States, our polls promise to be reasonably free and some would add FAIR and free from fear. That is where my problems begin not least in view of current trends.
While Sierra Leone will also be voting for all our MPs, the US will change only one-third of their representatives. Such is the way their constitution is crafted that congresspeople are elected for six years with the term of one third of them due for renewal after every two years. This is to keep the institutional memory of Congress.
I take it then that you have all been following the US elections with much keenness. In the last week the national convention of the Republican party held with, among other things, Mitt Romney formally accepting his nomination as their standard bearer. And the Democrats kicked off with theirs this week with President Barrack Obama officially accepting his nomination later this week.
Do you hear much about the primaries in the US for congressional candidates. Not sure you do. You have to be a keen follower of US politics to notice that is happening. Here in Sierra Leone, it has been interesting how symbols have been and are still being awarded by especially the two main political parties.
It sounds quite refreshing though, does it not, that our political parties are being forced to do what their members want them to do. At least in some places. In the ongoing primaries it is amazing how the high and mighty are falling. For example I still cannot come to terms with the fact that the Mayor of Makeni could have been denied a party symbol to run again in November for the All People's Congress party.
The reason for my consternation may not quite be that he is a colossal figure in his party or that he is a very popular chief of his metropolis. Far from it! After all how many people knew Moses Sesay before he became mayor in 2008. and how many were happy with him since he so became. But his mere position could have been used to influence the decision and return him. In stead a woman in this very conservative part of the country where female leadership is loathsome to many, was awarded the symbol. And the city is a safe seat for anyone who runs under the APC party. I stand to be corrected that should she be elected, which is all but certain, Sunkarie Kabbah-Kamara will become Sierra Leone's first elected mayoress outside Freetown.
I also understand that a lot of incumbent MPs and Councillors, some of them hard hitters in both main political parties, have been rejected in their bid to keep their symbols. This is a huge phenomenon. But it has not all been rosy. Members of the APC fought each other using human excreta over the awarding of symbols or not. At Goderich internal bickering led to party members allegedly beating each other forcibly initiating one into a secret society. Some sitting parliamentarians in especially Port Loko district used their closeness to the seat of power to force themselves on their people for the second time. And Port Loko seems to have been the hottest spot in the symbol awarding so far in these elections.
Perhaps not surprisingly, the process has been very controversial mainly for the APC party obviously because they are in power. But this in a way is a good thing in that it portends that there is some level of internal democracy having a foothold in the party with the rank and file in the party no longer sitting arms-folded or cross-legged, allowing whatever the top echelons want to do go unchallenged. The trouble is that where such does happen – the popular candidate does not get awarded a symbol and the leaders thrust down their throat their own candidate – they fall short of punishing the party or its leaders by voting against that candidate. It all boils down dogged party loyalty.
In the second city of Bo it has been very contentious and sometimes acrimonious. At one point supporters of one of the aspirants for mayor of Bo laid siege around the offices of the main opposition Sierra Leone People's Party after the regional executive apparently attempted to manipulate the result and failed and chose to close the office. It looked obvious at some point that the executive wanted to impose their own candidate on the party and the city. As I write, there is a caucus meeting going on in the party to ward off what has the potential to tear them into smithereens, political speak. This again is sign of internal democracy holding roots.
When I was covering the election that saw Obama voted as president of the United States in 2008, I had dinner with an East African resident of Phoenix in the McCain home state of Arizona. Among other things, as was natural at the time, the meteoric rise of Obama was a topic for discussion. We, like the rest of the world, were stunned by how he had managed to make it. But America is the dreamland where opportunities exist for all. And we both concluded that as brilliant a leader as he was, if it were in Africa he would have found it difficult if not impossible to have run such a successful campaign within his party even if the people liked him as their candidate.
The idea of a much smaller select group of people determining for the whole is not right. Political parties in this country must set standards to lift the nation upward not downward. Political parties should adopt the system of universal adult suffrage whereby all their card-carrying members should be allowed to vote for who should be their candidate at all levels. If that was not what applied in the United States, Obama would never have made it against a political heavyweight like Hillary Clinton. Invariably, many people have been eliminated by the backward system of symbol-awarding in Sierra Leone simply because they had the top of the party not on their side.
Our political parties must also set out academic standards for people awarded symbols to run for Parliament. I do not believe in having fools and idiots and half-baked as ministers. Not at all! But it is far worse having any such in parliament when you consider the pieces of legislation they will to pass and the amount and nature of issues to be debated. While the constitution cannot go beyond saying that someone must be “literate” to be in the House, political parties can establish, for example, that only those with tertiary education qualify to be awarded a symbol to contest. Otherwise we will continue to have the unsatisfactory parliament we have been cursed with where issues are thrown overboard and pettiness becomes the order of the day's debate.
But back to the US party conventions and the awarding of our symbols. I have been looking at the speakers' list for the Democrat to see where or whether public officials will be making speeches or even be present. I have not seen one. And president Obama has been working at the White House and watching proceedings on TV. He is not in North Carolina himself.
In Sierra Leone meanwhile, public officials have abandoned their offices for weeks directly involved in awarding symbols. They use tax payers' money to do so. They use the time the tax payer pays for to be at party functions. They use vehicles bought with taxpayers money to attend these party functions. And I bet they are on tax payers money as per diem while there. And they do so with arrant arrogance. To them nothing is wrong. The earlier we even attempt to separate state from party the better for our nation. I wonder what Berewa who was defensive of his party's record then would have to say about the way things are being done now. And President Koroma, what is his take on the same use of state resources by the incumbent some five years ago. The more things change, it seems, the more they remain the same.
