By Jimmy D.Kandeh,USA
The struggle to determine Sierra Leone’s political future is less a contest between political parties than a conflict between popular sectors (mass aspirations) and the political class (ruling class interests).
Mass aspirations and elite interests are on a collision course and the rapacious interests of our country’s political class have retarded our development and continue to imperil our social existence. But no society can develop without some kind of reconciliation between these two social forces. In the absence of such an accommodation, history teaches us that the obstacles to material and social progress will be cast aside and discarded so that society can advance.
History is certainly not on the side of those who loot our country’s patrimony and the outcome of the conflict between social forces (popular sectors) demanding genuine change in governance and fractions of the political class (including Solocrats) whose interests are antithetical to progress will ultimately determine the future political direction of our country.
Now that the people have served ‘Notice’ and voted for change, it is time for the SLPP to ‘Pack and Go.’ Resisting the will of the people is no longer an option and to be against the people (Solocrats) is to be on the wrong side of history. Those who seek to subvert the electoral mandate of the people are on the losing side of history. As is so often the case, there are critical moments in the history of a people when the forces of change simply overwhelm and dislodge rogue incumbents from power.
This is called ‘People’s Power’ and we may be witnessing one such historic moment in our country. The ‘landlords’ of the SLPP have been forced to come to terms with the fact that we the so-called ‘tenants’ of Sierra Leone have the final say in deciding who shall govern us. This is an inalienable right that is not given to us by any government (government cannot give what it does not have) and for which generations of Sierra Leoneans have struggled, sacrificed and suffered.
Based on the outcome of parliamentary balloting and the first round presidential results, there is no doubt the public has seen enough of the SLPP and wants them out of office. Yet there are those in the SLPP leadership who’ll stop at nothing to prolong their odious incumbency. What these certified scoundrels fail to acknowledge is that the forces of change they seek to stifle and rollback are irresistible, irrepressible and unstoppable.
The SLPP is sleepwalking the wrong side of our history because it remains an unreconstructed patronage outfit that is out of touch with popular currents and mass aspirations. The party is led by rogue politicians and is elitist to the core. It has nothing but snake oil to sell to the public. Solomon Berewa and Momodu Koroma were Kabbah’s handpicked patronage choices and a party that can be so anti-democratic in its internal operations cannot be expected to serve as custodian of our teething democracy. You can scheme and buy your way to the leadership of the SLPP but you surely cannot buy the presidency of Sierra Leone. That is one of the many lessons of the 2007 elections - the SLPP is not Sierra Leone and our country does not belong to its leaders.
You know an incumbent party is going to lose an election when it resorts to paying youths to don its T-shirts and participate at its campaign rallies. This is exactly what the SLPP did (something it did not have to do in 2002 or 1996) to inflate the number of people at its rallies and create the false impression of numerical strength. APC and PMDC supporters were not paid to show up and rally for their party but what the APC and PMDC lacked in resources they made up for with the genuine commitment of party members and supporters. By contrast, the lavish spending of Berewa and his rapacious cohorts could not offset what the SLPP lacked in popular support. How can any party, for crying out loud, rule a country like ours when it cannot even win a single seat in the Western Area?
The degenerate spectacle of long lines of people waiting for cash payments at Berewa’s house in the weeks leading to the elections is one of many examples of the SLPP leader’s appalling crudity and lack of political sense. European election observers could not help but take notice of Berewa’s brazen disregard and violation of the country’s electoral laws (re. Code of Conduct) and some of the basic tenets of democracy. No president or presidential candidate in our country’s history has ever stooped so low as to openly buy votes with cash, a transaction that should have disqualified the vice-president from participating in the elections. Even Kabbah, not to mention Momoh, never openly bought votes with cash or had long lines of people waiting outside State Lodge for handouts. What Berewa and Solocrats failed to grasp is that money can no longer buy our votes or political allegiance nor can ‘lasmamis’ or the divination of Malian occultists jade a whole nation into accepting their decadence.
Playing the ethnic card is the last refuge of losers and scoundrels everywhere (Fanon warned it can only lead down a blind alley) and Sierra Leone is no exception. With a badly bruised Berewa on the ropes and gasping for political oxygen, his supporters are grasping for straws by fear mongering and beating the drums of ethnic division and animosity in a last desperate attempt to spook southern voters into voting for them. But this will not work as many progressive southerners have come to reject the reactionary impulse that is ethnocentrism in favor of a more inclusionary and liberating discourse. There is nothing liberating or progressive about ethnic politics in Sierra Leone and those who privilege their ethnic group, political party and personal agenda over the country‘s interests are on the wrong side of history’s emancipatory trajectory.
The SLPP has only itself to blame for its “massive” electoral defeat at the hands of the APC and PMDC. The elections were referenda not on the APC or Charles Margai but on the incumbent SLPP. Lenin is said to have once remarked that the capitalist will sell you the rope with which to hang capitalism. SLPP leaders sold the opposition the rope with which their party was hung.
Removing the SLPP from power through the ballot box represents a watershed moment in the maturation of our fragile democracy. No leader or party should expect to be re-elected if they fail to perform. Should the APC falter, the country stands ready to toss them out in 2012. The APC can take a giant step forward by returning to its populist roots. There is a glimmer of hope that comes with popular change even if it involves choosing the ‘devil’ you don’t know over the devil you know. In sync with the plurality of my compatriots, I’d rather take my chances with Ernest Koroma because our country stands no chance with Berewa. Fortunately, Berewa and his unscrupulous retinue of ‘solocratic’ losers are in the departure lounge, waiting to permanently recede into political oblivion.
Comments