POLITICS-SIERRA LEONE: Extending Gov’t Mandate Stirs Controversy

By Lansana Fofana Reprint | | Print |

Lansana Fofana

FREETOWN, Feb 19 2001 (IPS) - A recent decision by parliament to extend the mandate of the government of President Tejan Kabbah by six months, citing the state of insecurity in the country, has triggered controversy in Sierra Leone.

Presidential elections were supposed to be held this month and parliamentary ones next month, but a constitutional clause empowers the President of the Republic to postpone elections if he feels that the atmosphere was not conducive enough, because of a state of war.

Already, the country is split into two, with nearly half being controlled by the rebels of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), who are reluctant to disarm to a UN peacekeeping force currently deployed in the West African state.

It’s not clear whether the government will be able to end the war, which has been ragging, on and off, since 1991, within the six-month extension period, after failure to do so in all of its five years in office.

“How do they intend to do it, perform a miracle?,” asks opposition leader of the National Unity Party (NUP) John Benjamin. “These guys need to know that they are incapable of ending the war and conduct free and fair elections.”

According to Benjamin, the only way out of the current political impasse is the formation of a government of national unity that will steer the country through the war and conduct national elections.

But the incumbent government is firmly opposed to the idea on the pretext of constitutionality. Attorney General, Solomon Berewa, has argued that an interim government would be a violation of the fundamental principles of the constitution, adding that the government will not yield to pressures in that direction. “Those who call for an interim government simply want to gain political office through the back door,” he says.

However, apart from the wranglings among politicians, the situation does not seem to favour the holding of elections, even from the point of view of the cash-strapped electoral commissioner.

The Chief Electoral Commissioner, Walter Nicol, says his commission needs an estimated 44 billion leones to conduct elections, but that it is broke. Voter registers also are yet to be updated, while constituency boundaries have not been delineated.

One US Dollar is equal to 1,900 Leones.

Nicol also complains that vast areas in Sierra Leone are still unsafe and inaccessible to the electoral commissioner. “The situation has to normalise before one talks about elections,” he explains.

“Furthermore, there are hundreds of thousands of refugees still living in neighbouring countries waiting to be repatriated and we cannot afford to disenfranchise them,” Nicol says.

The RUF also has called for the formation of an all-inclusive government, in which it will participate, to deal with the war situation, and prepare the ground for national elections.

RUF leader, self-styled General Issa Sesay, said last week that his guerrilla forces, which have been fighting successive Sierra Leonean governments since 1991, would not disarm and demobilise until the Freetown government backs down to pressure for a transitional interim administration.

Said Sesay: “The (Kabbah) government is not sincere in its handling of the peace process. We want to see an interim government put in place because this will give us confidence to organise our (RUF) party.”

There are also calls for the convening of a conference of national unity that will chart the way forward for the troubled country. This too, the government is not particularly enthusiastic about as it may resolve for the formation of an interim government.

A political analyst in the capital Freetown, who declined to be named, says: “I don’t think the government sincerely want elections to take place just yet. Otherwise they would have started voter education, constituency boundary delineation and voter registration at least in areas considered safe.”

Whatever the case, Sierra Leone’s fledgling democracy, restored in 1996 after a period of military interregnum, stands on quicksand, and things may just well turn for the worse if the players of the political game don’t do it cautiously.