Outgoing executives of the ruling Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) and some from the main opposition All People’s Congress (APC) have accused President Julius Maada Bio of ‘Xi Jinping-ing the SLPP’.
The outgoing SLPP executives made this claim during a roundtable discussion with some of them with regards the future of the party after Julius Maada Bio would have stepped out of the way for another SLPP leader to take over from him.
‘There is no plan for someone to take over from Maada Bio. No one knows who is going to be our next SLPP flagbearer after Bio because he has put an indefinite freeze on flagbearer aspirants’ activities by just calling on those who had showed interest in taking up after him to instead focus on him accomplishing his second term mandate. Going by what we know Bio is the only candidate we know for the party’s flagbearer because he has neither endorsed anyone to take over from him nor has he made it clear if he plans on going for a third term. Maybe after Bio is Bio again,’ said one of the SLPP executives.
The ranking SLPP stalwarts say so far all they have experienced under president Bio is a clamping down on any and all credible oppositions to his continued domination of the affairs of the SLPP by the retrenching of partisans who would have stood up to him and their replacement with young party upstarts incapable of putting up any challenge to his stranglehold on party affairs.
‘While most powerful Chinese leader since Chairman Mao Zedong, Xi Jinping of the People’s Republic of China has succeeded in being made president for life in China, we are yet to figure out how Bio plans on going forward after 2028 using constitutional means. While Xi Jinping clamped down on his rivals through a massive anticorruption purge, Bio has pretty much stood in the way of his subordinates not getting what they legally deserve for being allegedly involved in anticorruption practices. While he gave many of them the sack, they are nonetheless still in the mix although not strong enough to challenge Bio for control and leadership of the party. At present Bio has total control of the SLPP to the point where should he decide to go for a third term, he has all he needs to accomplish such a task. He has shown twice that he can defeat the APC either by hook or by crook and diehard ‘party-pekin members’ believe that he can give them a third term even if they have to sacrifice some of their rights and privileges for Bio to accomplish what he did in 2018 and 2023. In terms of the SLPP constitution we know that they are willing for Bio to change it if and when he feels the need. But although president Bio has consolidated power in the SLPP we don’t think that he is able to do so on the national scene. If we in the SLPP can be like scared dogs or cats and allow Bio to ride us roughshod, then we don’t believe that the rest of the nation will allow that to happen,’ an SLPP executive stated.
The only way the outgoing SLPP executives see Bio accomplishing what Xi Jinping has accomplished in the PRC is if he changes the national constitution (1991 Constitution of Sierra Leone).
‘This is where the widely polarized opposition APC should be very careful so the SLPP will not use its majority in parliament to cheat the people again and the APC by consulting to have the constitution changed without the active involvement of the main opposition. There is already complain that the ruling party is consulting on a possible constitutional review without the active participation of the opposition side.
In the CCP and PRC situation, Xi Jinping didn’t do that; he was pretty much asked to be president for life because of how successful the Chinese economy, scientists, citizens and the military have been performing under Comrade Xi. Bio has not done anything significant like Xi Jinping for us to want him rule past his second term. This will only happen if the APC buys into this act because they hope to benefit from it when they are in governance,’ noted another outgoing SLPP executive member.
Meanwhile, the SLPP stalwarts clarified that although Bio has ‘Xi Jinping-ed’ the ruling party he has not accomplished the kind of quantum leap in the economy and state as President Xi has in China for the diehard communists to give him such a wide berth to lead indefinitely into the future.
‘Look at what Xi Jinping has accomplished in China from anticorruption to lifting millions out of poverty not limited the Belt and Road Initiative, China’s position as the world’s leader in AI technology, One China Policy and in effect the second Super Power after the US. For Bio’s regime we know based on the Auditor General’s reports spanning 2018 to present we see that this is the most corrupt government since the end of hostilities. Xi Jinping hates corruption and drugs, which two issues have reportedly wrecked the Bio led government’s credibility. So we don’t see how Bio plans on making national what he has been allowed to do in the SLPP,’ noted an APC executive who claimed that should Bio be planning for a third term, ‘he should know that he has to show proof of how well his first two terms worked for all and sundry, not just those who benefitted from him being president with all his hiring and firing powers.’
President Bio has succeeded in consolidating power in the SLPP. Is Sierra Leone ready for a president for life, even for a third or more terms under the same conditions as the past eight years? It all depends on members of the main opposition and righteous politicians in the SLPP.
