Sierra Leone: Election Campaign Violence - full text
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President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah on Aug. 28 threatened to declare a state of emergency, after a series of violent clashes between supporters of rival political parties on Aug. 26-27 in Freetown (the capital). Violent clashes also broke out in the eastern town of Kono on Aug. 27. The fighting marred presidential and legislative election campaigns that otherwise had been conducted amid relative calm.
Immediate Context
The National Electoral Commission (NEC-SL) in Sierra Leone on Aug. 23 announced that a second round of voting was required to determine the winner of the country’s presidential election, after no candidate won the required minimum of 55 per cent of the first round vote, held on Aug. 11. Official first round results, published by the NEC-SL on Aug. 25, showed that Ernest Bai Koroma, the candidate of the opposition All People's Congress (APC), won 44.3 per cent of the vote, whilst Solomon Berewa, the vice-president and candidate of the ruling Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP), secured 38.3 per cent. Kabbah was barred from seeking a third term in office under the terms of Sierra Leone’s constitution.
In legislative elections to the 112-member House of Representatives (the unicameral legislature), also held on Aug. 11, the APC secured 59 seats, whilst the SLPP won 43 seats and the People's Movement for Democratic Change (PMDC) took the remaining 10 seats, according to official preliminary results published on Aug. 25.
The 2007 elections were the first to be held in Sierra Leone since the withdrawal in December 2005 of the UN Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL), which had been deployed to disarm rebels from the Revolutionary United Front (RUF).
Many observers regarded the elections as a test of Sierra Leone’s success in establishing democratic stability, following a brutal 11-year civil war. UN Security Council Resolution 1734 (2006), passed in December 2006, stressed that the 2007 elections would be “a major milestone indicating the sustainability of peace and security” in Sierra Leone.
Reaction and Outlook
Commenting on the outbreak of the electoral violence, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon on Aug. 29 urged all political parties in Sierra Leone to do “everything necessary” to prevent tensions from escalating. The UN Security Council had on Aug. 27 issued a statement praising the “exemplary conduct” of Sierra Leoneans during the first round of voting, highlighting that the elections had been conducted amid relative peace and security.
President Kabbah warned “all those responsible for the violence and lawlessness” to “be prepared for the consequences”, adding that the government would not “hesitate for one moment to declare a state of public emergency if the current state of intimidation, molestation and violent acts” were “not stopped immediately”, the BBC online news service reported on Aug. 28.
Some analysts suggested that the second round run-off vote, which had been scheduled for Sept. 8, would need to be postponed if there was a serious escalation of electoral violence. However, Victor Angelo, the head of the UN’s Integrated Office in Sierra Leone, said on Aug. 28 that he “did not anticipate” a “significant deterioration” in the security situation.
EU electoral observer Martin Callaman expressed reservations about the democratic process, according to a report published in August by the Angus Reid Global Monitor, an independent political research company. Callaman said that he was “concerned to witness queues outside the home of the current vice-president [Solomon Berewa] where it appeared that money was being distributed to voters”, adding that “SLPP supporters were given campaign T-shirts and cash”.
Historical Context
Sierra Leone, located on the west coast of Africa, became a UK colony in the early 19th century and was proclaimed a UK protectorate in 1896. By the mid-1950s, however, Sierra Leonean politicians were demanding greater local autonomy. Constitutional amendments introduced in August 1958 transferred limited political powers from UK officials to local politicians and Milton Margai was appointed as Sierra Leone’s first Prime Minister. In March 1960, political parties in Sierra Leone agreed to forge a united front, in an attempt to help the country achieve independence.
Sierra Leone finally achieved its independence in April 1961, one year after UK and Sierra Leonean officials reached an agreement over self-rule, at a specially convened conference held in London. Prime Minister Margai’s Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP) in May 1962 won more seats than any other party in the first general election to be held in Sierra Leone after independence. The All People's Congress (APC) narrowly won legislative elections in March 1967, but Siaka Probyn Stevens, the APC leader and newly appointed Prime Minister, was removed from power in a military coup. Stevens was returned to power in April 1968 and in April 1971, he introduced a republican constitution and became the country’s first President.
In a national referendum in June 1978, the first to be held in Sierra Leone, voters overwhelmingly approved the adoption of a new constitution which proclaimed Stevens’s ruling APC as the sole legal party. Maj.-Gen. Joseph Saidu Momoh was appointed to replace Stevens when he retired in 1985, but Momoh’s administration faced a mounting economic crisis and he was removed from power in a military coup in April 1992, amid an escalating civil war that had started in 1991. By January 1996, however, the military government, which had replaced Momoh’s administration, was itself removed from power in another military coup, led by Brig.-Gen. Julius Maada Bio, but multi-party elections were held in March 1996. The elections--the first since May 1977--were won by Ahmad Tejan Kabbah.
In May 1997 Kabbah was overthrown by a military coup and fled to neighbouring Guinea. Kabbah was returned to power in March 1998, but the ousted military junta that had overthrown him and rebels from the RUF, supported by the then president of Liberia, Charles Taylor, continued to wage war against the government and its security forces.
Kabbah negotiated a ceasefire with the leader of the RUF, Foday Sankoh, which was signed by both parties in Lomé (the capital of Togo) in May 1999. Although the peace agreement collapsed in May 2000, when the RUF abducted 500 UNAMSIL peacekeepers, the civil war was finally brought to an end in January 2002. An estimated 50,000 people were killed and some 2 million others (around one-third of the country’s population) were displaced during the civil war.
