By Emmanuel Christian Thorli
According to the Leader of the Opposition in Parliament, Sierra Leone is not a democracy. The APC Leader in the House made this statement at the State Opening of the Sixth Parliament two days ago. For the past six years the nation has seen a slow reversal of its democratic gains or credentials, and is quickly being replaced by an autocratic democracy that is mostly characterized by “orders from above” in its abuse of the rule of law.
Sierra Leone’s current state of democracy can be defined as an autocratic democracy. This tenure in our political dispensation can only be compared to what obtained in the country during the one party rule of the late President Siaka Probyn Stevens.
At that time our democracy was defined as a one party state democratic dictatorship. Our current President Julius Maada Bio made a reference to it when he famously reminded his supporters that at one point in this nation people only voted for one party.
But there is a historic reason for Sierra Leone’s deterioration to dictatorship that does not have any correlations to what is currently in the making.
The reason for this is that, at that time (in the 60s and 70s) there were too many military coups in the region and newly independent African nations. The Sierra Leone Peoples Party had the idea of a one party state where voters would only elect one party to run the state to avoid falling under the rule of one military regime to the next.
The idea by the ruling SLPP Founding Fathers was not too far from the culture of paramount and other traditional chieftaincies the party’s executive had grown up under and were still living with then. Many of them were either traditional chiefs or products of prominent people in the traditional political system of the hinterland.
Since the people of Sierra Leone saw the tribal card that the SLPP was then playing they choose to vote against the tribal political hegemons in the SLPP under the Margais and instead elected Siaka P. Stevens whose All Peoples Congress (APC) had widely appealed to the rest of the society that wanted to be free from the control and autocratic rule of the tribal political system.
The people voted to come from under a tribal political dictatorship for a democratic system of governance where all are equal in the eyes of the law. The voters in our first election wanted to be free from orders from above and instead rule by a codified system of laws as they understood the constitutional makeup as propagated by their European overlords.
After winning the people’s vote, Siaka Stevens instituted the SLPP idea and ruled Sierra Leone from 1971 to 1985. Under the one party APC rule the president had a tight grip on the nation. Since he had experienced and survived a military coup, Siaka Stevens made sure that he had the military and all state security apparatus under his firm control. The rest of the nation he dominated by not allowing public dissent, no allowing demonstrations, and controlling the people’s purse strings by his many powers to appoint and sack people from the public sector, which is the largest employer in the society. Stevens’ most effective tool of political oppression was clamping down on free speech, freedom of association and public protest.
At the State Opening of Parliament a few days ago, the leader of the opposition described the current government as” undemocratic”. He however failed to go as far as to equally describe the state of the country’s administration as a dictatorship, because for as long as people are not able to freely express their feelings and sentiments about governance and the President; for as much as people are not allowed access to the voting records after an election, for as much as people are not allowed peaceful protest against governance shortcomings, then we are living in a police state as the days of Siaka Steven’s one party dictatorship and in effect a rule by orders from above.
Sierra Leone has been slowly descending into an autocratic regime since protesting civilians were gunned down for trying to state their displeasure with their economic hardships and living conditions, since they wanted to protest to demand access to their voting record and voicing their opinions on decisions from the government that impacts on their way of life.
There is too much in our public domain for the people of Sierra Leone to be concerned that we might be heading back to the ‘Pa Sheki’ era only this time we will be under what can only be defined as an autocratic democracy, where one party will win the vote no matter the winner based on orders from above.
Apart from reminding the nation that for a long time people only voted for one party during elections, our president, who was also a former military dictator who ruled under Marshall Law (cannot get more autocratic than this), has severally promised or threatened that he will not hand power over back to the APC (that is even if the APC wins). Our leader has the power to employ and fire everyone critical or necessary for his continued grip on power in all the elections management bodies and has been accused of having all such institutions under his thumb by Ambassador Osman Yansanneh.
From the way the young female SLPP supporter at the disastrous town hall meeting at Bintumani Conference Centre was surrounded by state security people for simply wanting to voice her opinion about her economic and food insecurity, the way her microphone was cut off, the way Kadiru Kaikai’s case, despite his threat to bring war to the country, has just disappeared from the public domain, the way the Auditors General are being removed from office, and the electoral commissioner’s continued refusal to release the 2023 presidential elections data even against the rule of law, all point to the beginning of an autocratic democratic setup where no matter who wins, the incumbent party will continue from pole position. This should be a warning!