President Julius Maada Bio is slowly building up his 2023 political strategy as he cleans up his own Sierra Leone People’s Party.
The President is known within the politics of the country to survive coups and counter coups against his ambition to rule Sierra Leone.
He had survived all of these coups to lead the SLPP as flag bearer both in the 2012 and 2018 elections.
In the 2012 elections, he faced eighteen candidates including political heavyweights like Osu Boie Kamara, Dr. Alpha Tejan Wurie, Alpha Timbo and many others.
The race which was later reduced to a Bio, Osu Boie Kamara affair secured victory for President Bio.
The 2012 Miatta Conference convention twisted in a last minute ditch to crown Bio the party’s flag bearer for the 2012 elections against the then incumbent, Ernest Bai Koroma.
Bio challenged Ernest Bai Koroma and almost gave him a run for his money in those elections despite the fact that Ernest Koroma had delivered on his campaign promise by building roads and also bringing electricity to the once darkest city in the world.
The then Chief Electoral Commissioner, Christiana Thorpe, had announced the 2012 elections when counting was still going on in certain polling stations across the country.
President Bio challenged the outcome of the elections in court even though certain big guns within the party were averse to such a decision. The rest is history.
President Bio re-surfaced again in the 2018 elections more strongly than ever after briefly spending some time abroad advancing his studies.
The 2018 challenge was more stronger especially with the arrival of United Nations Diplomat, Dr. Kandeh Yumkella.
The party became very much divided to a point to cast Bio’s dream to the Presidency doom.
Almost all the candidates formed an alliance against him.
Bio was embarrassed by both within and outside the SLPP with human rights and corruption allegations.
He was vilified for not going to America and people say he had issues around domestic violence with the United States Government.
The difference this time round unlike in 2012 was the fact that he had a very strong media team to dispel all the accusations and counter accusations against his person.
He robustly presented Education as a flagship project that Sierra Leone would use to propel economic growth.
President Bio was not distracted from concentrating on what he wanted to become President of Sierra Leone for the second time after giving up power in 1996.
Many of his close and strong allies including very strong members of the SLPP, left the party when they knew that they could not withstand to fight President Bio within.
His strength was in the grassroots of the party.
Many APC supporters underrated his ability to win the 2018 elections.
He grew stronger as the race progressed and his massive inroads in the North and Western areas of the country secured him a lead in the first rounds of the elections against the incumbent Dr.Samura Kamara.
He finally dealt a blow to a hugely divided APC party which had twenty eight (28) candidates contesting the elections in the second and final round of the elections to make him the third democratically elected President of the country.
As President, he is poised to go for the second term in 2023 elections.
He has sensed that, he would have to fight again from within to secure the second bite and he has wasted no time to deal with all the potential people that would machinate this fight within the SLPP.
He has vision and he envisages a plot to make his way to the 2023 elections murky.
His experiences has taught him not to delay on those issues that would serve a barrier to distract him from his national agenda.
His recent cabinet reshuffle and axing of his Chairman and Leader as NATCOM Chairman, points to the fact that all is not well within his party .
The President this time has the shaper part of the knife to effectively direct where he wants his party to go.
President Bio has a very ambitious plan to change and develop Sierra Leone and will not allow to
be distracted within his very party.
He has, within time and again while in opposition, been able to prove that he has control of the politics of the SLPP.
He has transformed the once dull and diplomatic SLPP to a party that can now act and deliver on what the supporters want for the party.
President Bio’s confrontational tactics have subsumed the once violent and mouthy APC to the opposition.
President Bio’s political strategy would definitely land the party where it should be in 2023 without fear or favour and anybody that stands in his way will be axed.
Many who doubt his maturity and political acumen to deliver the 2023 elections have expressed doubt that his recent actions would plunge the party into chaos.
President Bio Plots 2023 Election Victory
