According to some sections of our international community friends and some supporters of the Sierra Leone Peoples Party (SLPP) and All Peoples Congress (APC), ‘there is an illegitimate regime or government occupying State House’. They said the 24 June election was anything but conclusive, going as far as saying the election, particularly the presidential election, was stolen.
It must be recalled and should raise questions among well-meaning Sierra Leoneans that nearly three weeks after the highly contentious 24 June elections no significant state government in West Africa, Africa or the rest of the world has called to congratulate Mr Bio on his win. The reason for this is because ECOWAS, the AU, the UN, US, EU and others have raised serious doubts over the results bordering on them not being in line with what was expected. They have made certain demands of the Electoral Commission for Sierra Leone- ECSL that if they fail to deliver would necessitate an investigation into the activities of SLPP politicians, with 24 of them already singled out for sanctions, asset freezes, travel bans, and the like.
As a matter of fact, no locally significant group has called to congratulate the president, except for some state appointed tribal chiefs in the Western Area and the usual banks and other local businesses, as per tradition. According to our sources at State House, the Western Area chiefs were each incentivised by the regime with the promise of a certain amount of cash, rumoured to be NLe5,000 per chief, for their effort in endorsing the incumbents’ win in the past election.
This has reportedly resulted to a lot of diverted traffic heading to State Ave for their piece of the government jobs pie, in line with the rumoured financial benefit for any group of people willing to come together to endorse the president. As a result of this several well-known civil society organisation heads and others who should not have any business seeking government portfolio appointments have been caught on the job seeking lines at MDAs pandering to President Bio’s every whim and caprice. Many of them have reportedly endorsed President Bio’s win against their better judgements.
This rush to land new government posts or jobs and or to maintain positions from the past regime forms the biggest concern of those who were part of the President’s 2018-2023 public management or government team. This need for government jobs has overshadowed the calls from all around the world for President Bio to step down from his claimed presidential victory and allow for fresh presidential elections to save the nation’s democratic credential from falling into the dustbin of failed, banana or pariah states.
Our international friends have said that there is no amount of strategy or distraction that the disputed re-elected president can make that will lessen the negative impact his claimed victory has caused across the country, and world. They cannot allow for this election to set the precedent for all the other elections slated across the continent and world this year. Apart from causing a national embarrassment, if there is anything to learn from the 24 June elections is that elections victories cannot and should never be allowed to be won in a “business as usual” atmosphere that denies and converts the people’s will or mandate by outright stealing of their votes.
If this was the way past regimes had been winning elections, Sierra Leoneans are now saying ‘we want it to stop or end with the 24 June elections!’
We want and demand change, something the desperately poor and financially hard-pressed people of Sierra Leone need if their future is going to be anything but bright.
However, as a sign of his obvious lack of respect for the calls from our government’s financial and other backers to allow for the honourable thing to happen, Bio is pressing on ahead with naming his new cabinet. The first set of appointments to cabinet positions that saw former Minister of Education Dr David M. Sengeh becoming Chief Minister have caused quite a ruckus in government MDAs with the president reportedly sacking many heads and directors of said public institutions. Bio is said to have blamed many of those he has let go of for the failures and issues of his past regime.
It is believed that the president has made so many great changes to his cabinet that if they were done during the past term would have made all the difference in how his first term turned out. In an action that can be termed as ‘a little bit too much when it is a little bit too late’ the president made such changes to his management team in the hope that they will deliver a successful second term, as Bio’s first term report card was and still is a dismal failure.
However, the struggling people of Sierra Leone have said nothing President Bio does can change what happened on 24 June and the expectations the local and international community have of him and his regime to settle our catastrophic democratic setup. His naming of a new cabinet has been seen as a desperate attempt to gain legitimacy when it will be impossible to legitimise his appointments when there will not be a Parliament to speak of that will be necessary for endorsing or approving such presidential appointments.
A rubberstamp regime is expected at Tower Hill that will do as the executive wishes without any objection from any quarter. Sense would have left public leadership in Sierra Leone with our nascent democracy worse for wear. Our budding democracy that we were building after Presidents Kabbah and Bai Koroma’s tenures have been made to move several steps back on our road to perdition.
Members of our international and diplomatic community that spoke to Forum have assured that this temporary lull in the public’s focus on calling for a redoing of the 24 June presidential elections that has been hijacked by the President’s hiring and sacking sprees, should not be mistaken for an end to their insistence that Bio steps down or that the Electoral Commissioner releases the disaggregated voter data per polling centre; neither will it stop the onslaught of the sanctions regimen that has already been released against President Bio and some of his closest associates and allies.
‘The main issue here is that there is nothing that President Bio and his appointed cabinet can do to legitimise their elections victory. No matter whom he sacks, hires of reshuffles, this second term regime of President Bio is illegitimate. They have nothing credible to stand on as they cannot convince anyone, not even themselves that they won the 24 June elections in a free and fair and credible manner. What we have at State House is a mockery of and travesty against the democratic order.’
‘Unless President Bio does something drastic that has never happened in Sierra Leone before we do not see how he plans on running government without the presence of the opposition. Going back to a one party state can never be accepted in or for Sierra Leone. The country should be growing and improving, not trying to reclaim a past that is the reason for the present mess the country is in. Bio should do the honourable thing and have another go at the presidential elections. If he is so confident of having done the people’s work, why is he so against doing the elections in a free and fair atmosphere?’ asked a section of our international development partners.
