By: Mohamed Jalloh
It is no gainsaying to assert that late former president Ahmad Tejan Kabbah is the most popular president to have ruled Sierra Leone since independence in 1961.This is no political gimmicking but indeed an empirical fact.
Polling 70.1 % of the total vote cast in 2002 is not an easy undertaking for any government around the world whether democratic or dictatorial.
Such a gargantuan figure can only be polled by a dictator who can manipulate elections management bodies and sometimes uses brute force for political ends.
After winning the 1996 return to multi-party elections, president Kabbah back then easily sailed through to seek re-election in 2002.
With a landslide victory, he defeated political heavy weights such as Ernest Bai Koroma who polled 22.4% of total votes and Johnny Paul Koroma who secured 3rd position and polled 3.0% of total vote cast with his Peace and Liberation party (PLP).
That was then. In the intervening years, two elections were won by former president Koroma in 2007 and 2012 respectively under suspicious circumstance with Christiana Thorpe as the Electoral Commission Boss, who later with an effrontery took up a cabinet position under the reign of Ernest Bai Koroma.
General elections were held in Sierra Leone on 11 August 2007. Seven candidates competed in the first round of the presidential election.
No candidate received the necessary 55% of the vote to win in the first round, and a second round was held between the top two candidates, Ernest Bai Koroma of the All People’s Congress (APC) and Solomon Berewa of the Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP), on 8 September. According to official results, Koroma won the election with 54.6% of the vote.
566 candidates stood in the parliamentary election, in which 112 seats, out of a total of 124, were at stake.
Voting for seats in parliament were done on a first-past-the-post constituency basis, rather than the system of proportional representation used previously in 1996.
12 members of parliament were chosen by traditional chiefs, who have been considered to be allied with the SLPP, in a separate election.
The election was described as “free and fair” and “orderly” by international observers. General elections were again held in Sierra Leone on 17 November 2012.
The result was a sweeping victory for the ruling All People’s Congress. Its leader, incumbent president Ernest Bai Koroma, won 58.7% of the vote, enough to win a second term without the need for a runoff. The APC also won 67 of the 112 elected seats in Parliament. To date, it is the APC’s best showing at an election since the restoration of multiparty politics in 1991.
In 2018, president Bio whiles in opposition was subsequently elected with 51.8% of the vote. International observers hailed the election as being “orderly, free and fair” despite the fact it was “hotly contested”.
Bio, a former military ruler, won 51.81 percent of the votes cast in last month’s election while Samura Kamara of the incumbent party took 48.19 percent of the votes. Voter turnout stood at 81 percent with 3.1 million people registered to vote.
This was Bio’s second bid for the presidency. He lost the 2012 election to outgoing President Ernest Bai Koroma albeit there were allegation of vote rigging and ballot stuffing.
Chief Justice Abdulai Charm swore in the new leader along with Vice President Mohamed Juldeh Jalloh just hours after the announcement. Bio of Sierra Leone Peoples’ Party (SLPP) pledged to govern for all Sierra Leoneans at the ceremony.
And he is living by his words. Even though President Bio`s cabinet is dominated by southeasterners but a considerable number of north westerners made it to strategic positions in his cabinet.
For example Fantamadi Bangura a northerner is the current Minister of Finance, Mohamed Orman Bangura also a northerner is the Minister of Youths and Justice Babatunde Edwards is the current Chief Justice is a Westerner to name but a few.
Julius Maada Bio pledged to govern for all Sierra Leoneans at his swearing ceremony.
Kamara, who’s All Peoples’ Congress (APC) have been in power for a decade, vowed to contest the result but he proved to have no legs in court to stand on because there was no evidence to substantiate his claims.
At the moment, the droves of opposition stalwarts pitching tents with the Bio led government are unprecedented in the history of Sierra Leone politics.
Former APC vice president Victor Foh and Alpha Khan are major campaign assets for the ruling SLPP. The latter has made significant inroads in the Port Loko district an opposition heartland. He has succeeded in wooing supporters, fans and friends to vote for President Bio and the rulling SLPP in the June 24th elections. The National Grand Coalition and its leader Kandeh Kolleh Yumkella is the last straw that breaks the camels` back. The political capital that he brings has paralyzed the hopes of the APC in winning any elections against the SLPP. This is in conjunction with the C4C factor in Kono, currently restrained by a court injunction from conducting any party activities. This legal constrain has rendered chances leaner for APC in Kono. A district in eastern Sierra Leone that is generally regarded as a swing state by political pundits. Whiles the support of the APC is shrinking in the Southeastern province, the SLPP is busy consolidating its popularity in the Northwestern region. A considerable number of opposition councilors and members of parliament have pitched tents with the SLPP.The infinitesimal support that the APC party used to enjoy in the southern province is all but gone.No wonder the campaign mantra of the SLPP in the forthcoming June 24th elections is “no run-off”. And president Bio is al set to clinch more than 70% of total vote cast to secure an unassailable elections victory.