Ernest Koroma’s Path Towards Authoritarian Democracy in Sierra Leone

By Chernoh Alpha M. Bah

This essay was first published in May 2013.

The 2013 Convention of the All Peoples Congress (APC) and its endorsement of President Ernest Koroma as the party’s chairman and leader created a huge debate across Sierra Leone. It is a debate that was anchored on key questions: the future of democracy, the issue of constitutional review, the role of opposition parties, the police and the rule of law in Sierra Leone.

The fact that President Koroma was the only candidate for the party’s highest position in the convention of the APC was not the only factor that triggered the debate. It was also caused by the question of constitutional review and the idea that President Ernest Bai Koroma was intending to seek another presidential term outside of the requirements of the national constitution. What became apparent from the response to this development was the question of constitutionality and adherence to democratic practice. Is the APC committed to democracy? Is President Koroma’s leadership of the country a cancer to democracy?

To answer these questions, one has to put into proper perspective the issues that generated the discussion itself. A clear examination of recent developments in the country before and immediately after the APC convention will offer a helpful understanding of the path that the country is taking.

Before the 2013 party convention, some APC partisans took over the national media to argue that President Koroma deserved another term in office. Without being clear whether the campaign for “another term in office” was for their party or the country, APC propagandists created serious alarms in the minds of pro-democratic forces across the country. They gave the impressions that President Koroma was planning to seek another term in the next presidential elections. In fact, senior APC members who were very close to President Koroma were the ones who took this nauseating discussion to the public domain. They argue, rather sycophantically and hypocritically, that the president should be rewarded again because in their opinion, he is the best that has happened to the country in fifty years.

Whether these usual praise-singers were sent by the president to sound public opinion on the question was unclear. But President Koroma, on whose behalf they appear to be speaking, remained perfectly silent on the issue. When it emerged that many of the APC delegates at the convention in Freetown were going to “re-appoint” or “coronate” President Koroma as their party leader again, suspicions became widespread. Many people were left wondering: They started to ask whether the President was just interested in another term as leader of the APC. Was the extended party leadership a prelude to a third term bid for the President? How does this development relate to the question of reviewing the national constitution?

No official answers were initially provided by the president’s office on these serious democratic questions. Pro-democratic forces, largely found in the opposition ranks, were increasingly concerned over such developments. Along street corners and the popular “ataya bases” across the city, ordinary people whom the APC claimed to represent—were also equally worried about the future of democracy in the country.

People had expected President Koroma to use the party’s convention to clarify the suspicions that he intended to seek a third term in the next presidential elections. Instead of transparency, the president’s address to the APC delegates created much doubt in the minds of ordinary people. It tacitly agreed with suggestions from his many propagandists and praise singers that a third term bid would be a welcome idea to him.

A pro-Koroma newspaper columnist had argued that opposition to a third term bid for the president should be dismissed because “an extension of President Koroma’s current term may be necessitated by the process of constitutional review and change in such a manner as to prescribe an extension to the current five year term to which the president is limited.” If this is to be taken seriously, then we must ask the question: is the ongoing constitutional review geared towards changing the presidential term of office to accommodate President Koroma’s bid for a third term?

Another pro-APC newspaper had gone even further to ascertain that “APC’s third term is one hundred percent confirmed.” The newspaper reported, “the APC will be re-elected for its third term in office because of the high note on which the party is carrying out its development activities across the Nation.” While both arguments took a different approach to the same question, their conclusions are premised from identical standpoints. They both believe that because of the so-called “development projects” that the government was reportedly undertaking across the country, the APC should be rewarded with another term in office. Although there were different positions about how that “third term” should be actualized, two things stand out clearly from both lines of the argument as reflected in the two positions referred to above.

First, there was a section of the ruling party who strongly believed that the APC’s image and face is that of President Koroma. They also believed that all “achievements” within the first five years were solely those of President Koroma and not that of the party and therefore the president must be accorded another term of office. This group does not foresee the APC surviving an electoral contest without President Koroma as its figure head. Second, there is another group of APC members who equally believe that the APC should stay in office because of its so-called “national development programs” but this should not happen with President Koroma as its frontrunner. This group believed that the “amount of development exported to the south-east” of the country is enough to make the APC win repeatedly in any electoral contest with or without President Koroma.

These two tendencies run concurrently within the party. These are questions that the APC convention failed to clarify. Where do we draw the line between those who believe in a third term for the APC with President Koroma as the frontrunner and those who want a third term for the APC without President Koroma? Where is President Koroma in all of this? Is the president really interested in a third term for himself?

Although President Koroma’s position on this question was officially unknown; rumors that he intended to stay for another term were made extremely rife by the utterances of the many sycophants and opportunists who floated around him. The fact that some of these opportunists hanging around the president had gone on public platforms saying he deserves “a third term” without any rebuttal from the president’s office was highly problematic. And it portends serious dangers for the stability of the country’s growing democracy.

What the protagonists of the so-called “third term agenda of president Koroma” failed to consider was the fact that the legitimacy of the current second term of the president was still being challenged by a majority of the democratic forces in the country. It was therefore senseless for someone to assert that President Koroma deserves another term in office when protest against his acquisition of a second term was before the Supreme Court.31 Consequently, it was completely incomprehensible that APC propagandists and President Koroma’s praise-singers in particular would seek to introduce such a suffocating idea at that material time.

The presidential term should not be the subject of a debate centered on the extension of the mandate of a sitting president. We should not talk of reviewing the constitution because a few individuals want to create room for President Koroma to stay for another term.

There is no democratic tradition in the world that rewards leaders with perpetuity because their political record is assumed to be unblemished. This is why when APC propagandists address President Koroma as a saint and messiah; they didn’t realize that they are exposing the excessive sycophancy and rank opportunism that typifies the political landscape since President Koroma assumed power.

The questions they leave unanswered are always there staring at them on the face. These questions surround the most tormenting issues facing ordinary people across the country. Why is President Koroma’s leadership not free from the sins of political corruption, bribery, opposition poaching, police brutality and theft of public resources? Why has President Koroma not solved the salary problems of teachers and university lecturers who are still owed bulks of backlog pays that calculators can no longer compute? Why is youth unemployment still on the increase?

APC propagandists claimed that the situation had been extremely good for the ordinary people in the last few years since President Koroma assumed power. But the truth is that the living conditions of ordinary people grew worse at supersonic speed every day. Meanwhile, the APC partisans grew extremely wealthy due to rogue political and tribal alliances. These are the rank opportunists and political sycophants who surround the president. They are the usual praise singers who are convinced that the president could get away with a third term bid. This is the group of opportunists and praise singers that backed the extension of President Koroma’s leadership for another term. This situation is now open to various interpretations.

This essay was first published in 2013. We republish it to highlight the previous work of the Africanist Press and why it is impossible to wrongly characterize our work as a partisan project influenced or controlled by the politics of the APC or SLPP.

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