There is a leadership succession bout in both the ruling and main opposition parties, Sierra Leone Peoples Party (SLPP) and All People’s Congress (APC) respectively.Democrats in both parties are calling for the current leaders of the parties, President Julius Maada Bio and Dr Samura Matthew Wilson Kamara to make way for newer and younger partisans with the requisite qualifications and popularity within the parties’ structures to step up and assume the reins of both parties.
Meanwhile American democracy remains the standard bearer of the global movement for democratic governance. In preparation for the upcoming United States – US presidential election, the Democratic Party set a great example in leadership succession issue that the world is either failing to acknowledge or heed. President Joe Biden, who is eligible to seek a second term in office but facing debilitating health issues, gave in to demands and advice from partisans to step aside for someone else in the party to take up the flagbearer position for the November 2024 presidential polls. And in a move that is unprecedented in US presidential election history, Biden after much resistance and reluctance gave in to the wise advice and stepped aside for his younger Vice President Kamala Harris to replace him as the Democratic Party’s candidate for this year’s presidential elections.
The question for now is will we see the old making way for the new in Sierra Leone?
There is an expressed fear by democrats in both the APC and SLPP that based on the lack of expression by their substantive leaders about their retirement plans that a legal battle is on the way for both men to continue trying to seek the Office of the President against their parties’ constitutional provisions on the tenure of the flagbearer.
A cursory scanning of news headlines of leading newspapers would indicate that there is an open leadership succession battle in both parties. The APC is openly divided as to their future flagbearer after Dr Samura Kamara, while people in the SLPP on the other hand remain quiet.
The leading topic of discussion in the APC is for the party’s flagbearer for the 2018 and 2023 presidential elections to step aside for a new partisan to take over. As the party with a truly democratic constitution ranking members of the party’s executive and a large segment of its grassroots supporters are calling for Dr Samura Kamara to step down.
“Our party’s constitution is clear on this matter so we don’t think that this is open to debate. The provision is that a flagbearer after seeking the Office of the President twice and failing should step aside; he or she is done trying to be President of Sierra Leone. This provision is not open to sentimentality. While we understand and believe and know that Dr Samura Kamara won last year’s presidential election, he was, however, not declared the winner by the electoral commission. While he and many others in the party at home and abroad including members of the international community are still trying to get to the bottom of how our votes were counted, if they were counted, we still think that Dr Samura Kamara should step aside for someone else to try and win the presidency back from the SLPP,” said a ranking APC executive member speaking on anonymity.
On the side of the ruling SLPP, it is hard to get anyone in the party who is aware of the president’s succession plans, if he plans on stepping down and if the party’s ranking members will put up a resistance should he decide to go further than his two constitutionally provided terms as both SLPP flagbearer and President of Sierra Leone.
“For the SLPP, our leadership succession situation, although it is evidently the same as in the APC, is also quite different. There is an across the board respect and regard for the gains president Bio has made since returning the party back to power in 2018 after 11 years in the political wilderness. No matter how people see it president Bio has won two presidential elections and the party is hopeful for him to make it a triple. He has proven to the party’s rank and file that he is able to deal with the APC than any other member in the party. When we had a minority after the 2018 elections he was able to manoeuvre for us to even the playing field. To avoid a repeat of 2018 he was able to get the PR system of election last election that gave us a majority in Parliament. Many people in the party are actually open for him going for an extra or more terms based on his performance that the APC seems unable to counter,” said the SLPP stalwart.
The SLPP, according to members and supporters FORUM spoke to, is not averse to president Bio going further than two terms. They say they like how he has transformed the party by getting rid of people from his first term that were a detriment to his plans, they consider him the consummate politician and the only person in the SLPP leadership “that is able to deal with the APC”.
“If there is a need for us to change our party’s constitution for president Bio to go further, we are willing. The party’s constitution is not rigid; it can be changed to suit the party’s present and future needs. With the review of the national constitution in the offing we don’t see what is wrong with the president manoeuvring again to see him going for further terms. We have to define a democracy that suits us. President Bio, despite his many detractors in and out of the party, has done a lot to restore confidence in the SLPP and Sierra Leone. There is an old saying that: ‘If it is not broken, don’t try to fix it’. President Bio is working for the party and the country and we see nothing wrong if he wants to go further. If not him, who can you name in our party that can effectively take on and beat the APC at their own game?” asked an SLPP grassroots member at the party’s Wallace Johnson Street headquarters.
In terms of succession, if the SLPP was to do things by the book, then Vice President Dr Mohamed Juldeh Jalloh should be preparing, like Vice President Kamala Harris, to take over the reins of the party. Since 2018 party members have said he has not only done an exemplary job as the president’s vice but has also shown himself an able supporter of his plans and actions. But since the VP and many others with the potential to take over from the president are either quiet or not causing enough ruckus in the party and media as wanting to take over from the president, his supporters and partisans say the nation should be prepared for a surprise from the Office of the President with regards the 2028 presidential election and the candidate the SLPP will choose.
“This is not a secret in the party. The president does not plan on stepping down. He has been able to successfully set aside everyone that is capable of challenging him and have replaced them with younger people in the party who are not showing any sign that they either have an interest in the Office of the President or that they would challenge the president for the party’s flag and leadership. If we were to implement the recommendations from the Tripartite Committee in their entirety then we should not be having this fear to step up and openly state our intention to want to lead the party and nation after president Bio. For the SLPP this leadership succession issue is closed and the only person we see in the race is the president,” said a member of the party’s executive.
The APC on the other hand is demanding that Dr Samura Kamara step aside for the party to start making plans to unseat whoever the SLPP will put up as candidate for the 2028 elections. The call by the party’s executive for registration of partisans has not gone down well with Dr Samura Kamara’s supporters who say the party cannot assure that they can protect their votes as they still don’t know a year after the 2023 presidential vote how their votes were tallied by the electoral commission. For many of them the party should continue in its fight to ensure electoral justice, confident that at the end of the battle Dr Samura Kamara will be declared the winner of the 2023 presidential vote which would see the president being forced to hand over power to the APC flagbearer.
“For us, the call for Dr Samura Kamara to step aside is premature in light of the on-going tripartite process. We are aware of our party’s constitution and what it says about the tenure of the flagbearer. However, we cannot entertain calls for Dr Samura to step down when we still consider the 2023 presidential elections as an unfinished business, no matter who was declared the winner of the presidency. Dr Samura Kamara will gladly step aside if we discover that he also lost the 2023 elections after the 2018 in free, fair and credible manner. But for as long as we are still waiting on the verdict from the international community calls for a leadership succession in the APC are uncalled for, disloyal, premature and an abandonment of the party’s promise to protect our votes. It is as if the APC executives are saying that Maada Bio won the elections the way Mohamed Konneh said he did,” said a member of the APC grassroots.
There is not telling if either Dr Samura Kamara or president Julius Maada Bio are willing to step aside from their respective leaderships of the main political parties in the country, which presents a very interesting time for politics, constitutionality, democratic good governance and the rule of law in Sierra Leone.
