With Joseph A. Kamanda
Multiple factors responsible for the weaknesses and failures of third-force politicians are the double standards, hypocrisy, and the like among Sierra Leonean politicians, a reason why political third forces are always dead on arrival, and opposition parties hardly function as true representatives of the people even in Parliament.
Records have it that no political third force has ever survived beyond its imaginable period of five years since the rebirth of multi-party democracy in Sierra Leone. This political failure is due to the fact that the ruling party always buy the souls of members of any emerging third force with the potential of challenging critical national issues regarding the ruling party’s policies and its excesses, and by extension, the lapses of the government.
The prices of third-force politicians are paid by the leader of a ruling party, from the top to the least member, including the entire shadow government, if there is any.
Largely backed by deceit, double standards and the like, political opportunists are not new or unusual, forming a significant aspect of the political game-plan of broke politicians who always use advocacy to draw the attention of the government and ruling party operatives, a reason double standards and unethical conduct always find comfortable accommodation in Sierra Leone’s political governance structure.
Some politicians always ply opportunistic routes to get away with their corrupt and miss-governance pranks with impunity at the detriment of the masses. One may even want to ask who has ever been jailed by the much talked about Commissions of Inquiries (CoIs) set up by the failed President Julius Maada Bio-led administration. Such a flawed accountability process only targeted opposition politicians, most of whom are now off the hook due to the compromise culture of the enforcement of procedural laws of the land.
It could be recalled that so many political parties contested the war-time multi party election in 1996, though most of such parties didn’t make it to Parliament. Those who won parliamentary seats were later consumed by then governing Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) due to double roles played by the ruling party at that time against such political parties. The likes of People’s Democratic Party (DPD) and all its members, including the then leader, Osman Kamara, were strategically consumed by the SLPP by offering him a cabinet portfolio as the then Minister of Trade and Industry. The ministerial portfolio shifted his focus from managing the affairs of the PDP.
The departure of Kamara marked the premature irrelevance of the PDP from the country’s political limelight. Others lobbied for SLPP symbols and ran for the ruling party in 2002. Like PDP, the National Unity Party (NUP), United National People’s Party (UNPP) and a host of other opposition parties ended up joining the President Alhaji Ahmed Tejan Kabbah-led SLPP administration, marking that chapter of democratic dispensation without a political third force.
another vibrant third force emerged in 2007, the People’s Movement for Democratic Change (PMDC), a party that broke off from SLPP with lawyer Charles Francis Margai as its leader. The PMDC was considered as a firebrand political factor.
The PMDC later threw its weight behind the then opposition All People’s Congress (APC) under the leadership of Ernest Bai Koroma. After the first round of the 2007 Presidential elections, the PMDC and APC formed an alliance that democratically dethroned the SLPP in the ensuing Presidential election run-off, marking the end of the PMDC after some of its members secured cabinet and other governance positions in the Koroma – APC administration.
The Alliance Democratic Party (ADP) led by Mohammed Kamaraimba Mansaray also emerged like the United Democratic Movement (UDM), led by another Mohamed- Mohamed Bangura. The UDM was on the payroll of the APC, to a point that Bangura almost served as the bag carrier of ex-President Koroma. Such political parties played more in the hands of the incumbent government rather than serving as opposition political entities.
Mohamed Bangura ended up securing a party symbol from the APC; and he is now a serving MP with the opposition in the House of Parliament, though he is on the verge of joining the PDP.
Literally, double standards by its mere traditional definition can be simply defined as a rule or principle which is unfairly applied in different ways to different people or groups. Such is apt in Sierra Leone politics; and it is at play in both traditional political parties- the APC and SLP, and for certain politicians, including the 2023 APC flag-bearer, Dr. Samura Mathew Wilson Kamara and his expired executive, battling in the APC.
Double standards largely backed by deceits is not new in Sierra Leone political culture, especially among opposition politicians. Opposition politicians have always pretended to be loyalists to their political parties during the day and at night become something completely different.
By virtue of its position in the present state governance structure, the APC is expected to be serving as a responsible and constructive opposition entity, wherein members position themselves as opposition APC members during the day but appear in strange colours at night. Such is not new and unusual in the political culture in a poverty-stricken nation like Sierra Leone.
Taking a chronological retrospect of the rise and fall of political third forces in Sierra Leone’s democratic practices, it is also worthy to look at factors ranging from poverty, public sector corruption, bad governance and the double standards of opposition politicians since time immemorial. Opposition politicians generally have in the last six years, if not since the resurrection of democratic rule in the country, failed to call things by their names, nor do they attempt at addressing critical national issues affecting the populace. Opposition politicians in Sierra Leone for instance, can be SLPP during the day and transform into APC at night, especially if the APC happens to be in the driving seat. They can get along in such a manner of politicking under the guise of political tolerance, tolerance at the detriment of the masses.
Such political practices have existed among members of APC and SLPP since the return of democracy in Sierra Leone, the more reason the country keeps getting it wrong from all fronts simply because of the double standards of politicians.
As I am penning this piece, there are strong ruling SLPP members who are praying hard for their leader President Bio, to fail. Some are even bent on secretly bankrolling the APC in anticipation that when the APC wins in 2028, APC will protect them and their businesses. The fact that a good number of APC politicians, who are now pushing their way for the next Presidential election, financed the Bio Presidential bid.
Similar strategies are already at play, as is always the case for opportunistic politicians on both sides of this country’s political divide.
