News
Sierra Leone Presidential Elections, June 24
By Joseph Siegle and Candace Cook
Share article
President Julius Maada Bio is seeking a second 5-year term in 2023. Despite a legacy of competitive elections and peaceful transfers of power, Sierra Leone enters this election season under the strain of heightened economic and political tensions.
In Summary
2023 Elections Calendar
Event
Timeline
Campaign period
May/June 2023
Voting date
Saturday, 24 June 2023
Political temperatures
Protests are relatively uncommon in Sierra Leone, and political protests require a police permit, which is rarely granted. Â Nevertheless, in August 2022, there were protests against the growing economic hardships triggering a brutal police crackdown, including the firing of live ammunition at protesters that resulted in 21 civilian and 6 police fatalities. Businesses, government buildings, and vehicles were charred across parts of eastern Freetown.
Political tensions have been elevated since the 2018 legislative elections when Bio’s Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) party challenged 10 seats won by the opposition All People’s Congress (APC). In 2019, the High Court ruled in favor of the SLPP petition alleging electoral fraud. As a result, the contested seats automatically shifted to the runner-up SLPP candidates. This resulted in a flipping of the majority in the unicameral legislature to the SLPP by a 58 to 57 margin.
APC supporters protested the court ruling outside the court and their party headquarters. Police subsequently laid siege to the party building, firing tear gas to break up the demonstration.
New proportional representation system
A new wrinkle in the 2023 legislative elections is that they will be run under a proportional representation (PR) rather than the customary constituency-based first-past-the-post electoral system. The APC had challenged the legality of the change put forward by the SLPP, however, the Supreme Court ruled in January 2023, that the shift in voting system was constitutional. Critics are concerned that a PR system will further concentrate power in the hands of party leaders.
This change, just 5 months before the election, will require parties to adjust their campaigns while introducing a new element of uncertainty. While it has reputation for fairly administering its duties despite financial limitations, the revised selection procedures will also require rapid adaptation by the National Election Commission.
Who are the frontrunners?
Bio came into office in 2018 after defeating Samura Kamara of the incumbent APC party with 52 percent in the second round of voting in a process deemed credible by international observers. Bio succeeded his term-limited predecessor President Ernest Bai Koroma of the APC. Koroma, in turn, was following the precedent of President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah of the SLPP, who stepped down in 2007 after his two terms in office.Â
Sierra Leone, thus, has made commendable strides in building democratic institutions and maintaining stability since its devastating civil war from 1991-2002 in which 50,000 people were killed.
A former brigadier general, Bio was briefly the head of a military junta prior to Kabbah’s taking office in 1996, beginning Sierra Leone’s democratic transition. Bio subsequently contested the 2012 presidential campaign, losing to Koroma.
Sierra Leone’s main opposition party has named Dr Samura Kamara, the runner-up in the last presidential election, as its candidate for the next vote in June 2023. Kamara narrowly lost to then opposition candidate President Julius Maada Bio in 2018.
His All People’s Congress (APC) party elected him to run again in the next presidential election on June 24, in which Maada Bio will seek to win a second term.Â
Dr Kamara is a politician and economist who has previously served as a Minister of Foreign Affairs, Minister of Finance and Economic Development, Governor of the Bank of Sierra Leone from 2007 to 2009 and Financial Secretary in the Ministry of Finance during President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah’s administration.Â
References.
This article has been republished with permission from the Africa Center for Strategic Studies. https://africacenter.org with addition content from Reuters.