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Sierra Leone: Elections Bring A Gleam Of Hope

Bhuwan Thapaliya - 8/13/2007

Sierra Leone’s Presidential and Parliamentary elections on August 11th may do little more than legitimize the end of the country’s bloody civil war that ended in 2002. Yet the election stands out in Sierra Leone , partly because of its rarity. For the first time the election will be held without the assistance of international peace keepers.

Considering this, the elections are being treated as a test of the country’s ability to hold a fair and honest poll. They are also a test of the three presidential candidates, who are all set to diminish unemployment, corruption, poverty, reform government, address health and educational issues, and expand the economy.

But what makes their objectives tough to fulfill is this: Though the civil war is over, the factors that sparked the conflict that began in 1991 are still alive and kicking. And the elections, unfortunately, are not expected to change much given the nation’s unresolved socio-political issues.

”Sierra Leone remains for many the ultimate symbol of the failed state, the classic case of a violent crisis arising from environmental degradation, crime, overpopulation, and ethnic divisions. What seems normal elsewhere is exceptional here.” Writes Donald Steinberg on his 6 August 2007 article on allAfrice.com

Though the country is no longer under the shadow of beasts like rebel leader Foday Sankoh and former Liberian President Charles Taylor, who used the under fed and unemployed youths to meet their political goals by engaging them in violent and brutal activities, unfortunately, the conditions that Sankoh and Taylor exploited then are still much in evidence today.

“Absolute levels of poverty and suffering in Sierra Leone remain staggering.” According to the media sources.

For all their aspirations, Sierra Leone faces some daunting realities. One is that economic reform has not yet included reform of stifling, and corrupt, official bureaucracies. A second handicap is the inadequacy of education throughout its region. Third is massive unemployment and the fourth is the poverty level, which is very high. For example, there are jobs for only one in five young people, and nearly seven in ten adults live in poverty. Perhaps, this will sum up the whole story of Sierra Leone -The country ranks second to last among 177 countries in the UN Human Development Index.

But its not that nothing has changed in Sierra Leone . It has made significant progress since peace returned in 2002. After years in the economic desert, Sierra Leone is trying to find a way out. And with varying enthusiasm, officials in Sierra Leone now sing the praises of free markets and foreign capital.

The economy is also growing at an excellent rate. The economy grew by 7 per cent in each of the past two years. But analyst’s say, it is not because of its economic activities but because of the lenders forgiveness.

“Foreign lenders forgave the $1.6 billion external debt in 2006,” according to the reports.

Nonetheless, some predict their country will soon be growing at rates of 8-9% a year. But nothing is ever that certain in Sierra Leone . This is not the first time the region has had great dreams.

Hence, the August 11 presidential and parliamentary elections provides an historic opportunity for the people of Sierra Leone to choose the best party and the best leader to lead them away from the mental scars of the civil war towards the path of peace and prosperity.

So who are the three top presidential candidates?

“First one is Solomon Berewa, the sitting vice president and in many ways the de facto leader of Sierra Leone since 2002. Second one is Ernest Koroma, a mild-mannered former insurance executive who ran for president in 2002, and accepted the results when he lost; and the third one is Charles Margai, a fixture of political life in Sierra Leone for more than three decades, who left Mr. Berewa's party in 2005 to form his own party,” according to allAfrica.com.

There have been reports of political sea- sawing going on in between the parties in various regions of Sierra Leone . But that’s not something unusual in democracy. Of late, there has been growing rivalries between the parties of Mr. Berewa and Mr. Margai, especially in the south and east. But nonetheless, this is a three way race and in election nothing is certain. And if the sympathy is on Mr. Koroma side, and a bit of momentum on Mr Margai, all the passion is on Mr. Barewa, the vice-president.

They say, Mr Barewa is a natural orator. His supporters adore him and he has the experience. Many reckon that he has run the country from behind the scenes for years. Furthermore, he runs a clever grass root campaign, and this is what separates him from the rest. But his critics say his critics say he is implicated in all of the current government’s failures and shortcomings.

Meanwhile, let the best man win but it is not the question of winning only. It all is about winning in peaceful, free and fair election and by doing so, leaving the taboo of a former failed state behind, to move ahead with other democracies of the world.

But an election result it not enough to build a country. If the Sierra Leonease are to prove the pessimist wrong, they must do more than elect the party and the president of their choice. They must say “No matter who wins the election, we are Sierra Leonease and Sierra Lion is ours, and it is out duty to rebuild this nation to make heaven on earth.”

As long as peace lasts and the economy stays on course, the horizon looks reasonably rosy. The best reason for optimism, however, is Sierra Leon ’s realization that its years of bloodshed, in the end, solved nothing. Today everyone is prepared to live and let live. Sierra Leon is becoming at ease with itself. Doubtless the unreformed, perhaps unreformable, confessional instinct will raise sectarian tempers yet again some day- but surely not to the level of civil war, not for a very long time.

After years of peace and elections in the offing, Sierra Leon is comfortably sitting on the driver’s seat. And upon the announcement of the Presidential and Parliamentary elections result, if the elected bodies deliver the goods, Sierra Leon could soon erase its horrible past.