Election finale

I just realized I left the election story a cliffhanger. My apologies!

It seems ages ago, but here’s the barebones outline: the then-opposition All People’s Congress (APC) won the run-off by a comfortable margin (950,407 votes to the Sierra Leone People’s Party’s 789,651), and Ernest Bai Koroma was sworn in on September 17, 2007.

There were some dramatic final moments. The independent National Electoral Commission (NEC) invalidated 477 polling stations for apparent vote-rigging (including obviously faked tally sheets and vote counts well over 100% of registered voters). Most of these were in strongholds of the (then-ruling) Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP), which prompted accusations of bias by the SLPP and a last-minute weekend appeal for the courts to halt the count. At 10 a.m. Monday morning, with the court case still pending, the NEC called a press conference at which they surprised everyone by announcing the final tally, arguing that the invalidated votes did not affect the outcome. Hours later, the new president was sworn into office.

Some in the SLPP cried foul, but the party’s leaders – both former President Alhaji Ahmad Tejan Kabbah and former Vice President Solomon Berewa – accepted the results and attended the swearing-in of president-elect Koroma. Most independent observers praised the NEC’s handling of the situation, and just about everyone breathed a sigh of relief that the results were accepted without violent incident. Some SLPP members are still grumbling and calling for an investigation, but I tend to think they should be most angry at their party members who tried so blatantly to stuff the ballot boxes, and therefore led to the disenfranchisement of large areas of SLPP support. (Though by NEC’s calculation these votes would not have changed the outcome even if all went for the SLPP.)

In the end, most people – in Sierra Leone and internationally – were delighted with the election. Despite some sporadic violence during the campaign period and in the immediate celebratory aftermath, the whole experience was impressively peaceful. Remarkably for a country in which military intervention in politics is more a norm than an exception, the army and police handled themselves with restraint. And the Sierra Leone electorate – in roundly rejecting a president they elected by a large margin just 5 years before, but who was largely perceived to have delivered too little in the post-war period – proved itself to be politically and democratically sophisticated.

Since the final vote was cast, President Koroma seems to have impressed almost everyone, including many of his critics. His speech at the opening of parliament was impressive, and his nominees for cabinet ministers drew praise from many quarters, though also criticism for including too few Mende-speaking southerners. For my part, I’m delighted to see the strong, independent (and female) voice of Zainab Bangura – by most accounts one of Sierra Leone’s most impressive individuals, and one not afraid to speak her mind – filling the spot of Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Relations.

On the streets of Freetown, it is clear that Koroma is the darling of the capital city, which voted for him more than 2 to 1. Unlike former President Kabbah, an older and reclusive man rarely seen outside of the Presidential Lodge where he both lived and worked, President Koroma seems to be everywhere. He drives around town in a caravan of SUVs, escorted by police with sirens blaring, and people flock to catch a glimpse. In what has become his signature move, he always has his window down – the only exception in a row of tinted obscurity – and waves at the people lining the streets. They, in turn, love it.

Koroma’s honeymoon will soon pass and he will have to show genuine progress to keep the people’s affection. But for now there is an air of optimism in the streets that is like nothing I’ve felt since my arrival here nearly two years ago. The people’s expectations are sky-high, and they are watching Koroma and his APC government closely to see if they will deliver the new and better Salone they promised.

If they don’t, I think the electorate – as proven in the just-completed elections – will not hesitate to toss them out.