Con­tributed by Ben Als­durf.
For Sierra Leone’s upcom­ing Novem­ber elec­tions the incum­bent pres­i­dent Ernest Bai Koroma of the All Peo­ples Con­gress (APC) looks to be the favorite. While the social impacts of recent growth in Sierra Leone have yet to be fully real­ized at the local level, the Pres­i­dent remains pop­u­lar. His gov­ern­ment has per­formed well attract­ing invest­ment while increas­ing basic ser­vices such as elec­tric­ity. With that said, the coun­try remains at 180 out of 187 coun­tries accord­ing to the UNDP’s Human Devel­op­ment Index (HDI). In addi­tion, the Anti-Corruption Com­mis­sion (ACC) has man­aged to pur­sue sev­eral note­wor­thy cor­rup­tion cases, includ­ing against the mayor of Free­town, Her­bert Akieremi George-Williams; how­ever, lenient penal­ties and asser­tions of cor­rup­tion within the com­mis­sion itself have sul­lied its reputation.

Despite the rel­a­tively pos­i­tive stand­ing of Koroma, this year has not been with­out inci­dent. In the spring there was con­tro­versy as one of the world’s 10 poor­est nations pur­chased $4.5 mil­lion in arms for its police force, includ­ing some heavy weaponry. Fur­ther­more, while the iron-ore min­ing sec­tor is one of the pri­mary growth engines for the coun­try, frus­trated work­ers went on strike at African Min­er­als Bum­buna mine in April. The skir­mishes that resulted left one dead and more injured. Yet, in spite of these hur­dles Koroma remains well poised to con­tinue his pres­i­dency into a sec­ond term.

Mean­while, the main oppo­si­tion Sierra Leone Peo­ples Party (SLPP) has been strug­gling. The SLPP has suf­fered a series of defec­tions to the APC this sum­mer (some of whom may have returned), and its founder­ing has made an APC vic­tory look more likely in Novem­ber.  To com­pound the inter­nal party strug­gles, Julius Maada Bio, the can­di­date that the SLPP is field­ing appears to be more of a throw­back war hero than capa­ble gov­er­nor. Bio was one of the sol­diers that over­threw Pres­i­dent Momoh’s gov­ern­ment in 1992, and formed the National Pro­vi­sional Rul­ing Coun­cil (NPRC), led by Valen­tine Strasser. This past is get­ting drudged up by cur­rent government’s deci­sion to inves­ti­gate the deaths of sus­pected coup plot­ters dur­ing the NPRC’s rule. The move appears to be more of an elec­tion smear tac­tic than an attempt to pur­sue real justice.

In spite of the SLPP’s cam­paign strug­gles one unex­pected vari­able threat­ens to derail the smooth ride of Koroma back to the State House, namely the recent cholera out­break. Look­ing at the WHO’s map of cholera cases by dis­trict, it appears to over­lay quite closely to the dis­tricts where Pres­i­dent Koroma, and the APC, enjoyed strong sup­port in 2007. While the inter­na­tional com­mu­nity is step­ping in to pro­vide addi­tional resources to fight the worst out­break of cholera in Sierra Leone’s recent his­tory, two more months of an out­break may put a strain on the very com­mu­ni­ties that have been sup­port­ive of Koroma in the past. This could sit­u­ate Bio well to exploit the frus­tra­tions of urban slum dwellers and other par­tic­u­larly affected groups.

Elec­tion watch­ers should note how well the inter­na­tional response is able to stem the increase in new cholera cases and how the government’s response is per­ceived by affected com­mu­ni­ties in the run up to the elec­tion. In an insight­ful piece by the Economist’s Baobab blog, the authors note the con­nec­tion between the cholera epi­demic and the lack of basic ser­vices that can be attrib­uted to pop­u­lar sup­port for cor­rupt politi­cians. The sad irony of this out­break is that the per­va­sion of cholera, a dis­ease that thrives in con­t­a­m­i­nated envi­ron­ments, is pos­si­ble due to gov­ern­ment cor­rup­tion. As cit­i­zens become fed up with ill­ness and insuf­fi­cient san­i­ta­tion that are lit­er­ally killing them, the ques­tion is how long until they demand accountability.

It can be extremely dif­fi­cult to track voter atti­tudes in a coun­try with­out reli­able polling data and noto­ri­ously par­ti­san jour­nal­ism, but the strong per­for­mance of the National Elec­toral Com­mis­sion in the 2007 elec­tions in the face of irreg­u­lar­i­ties, estab­lished it as one of the more reli­able gov­ern­ment insti­tu­tions. While it may be dif­fi­cult to gauge sup­port for either can­di­date in the lead up to the elec­tion, there is some sense that the result will be fair.

Beyond the election

Those look­ing to what a sec­ond Koroma admin­is­tra­tion might hold, should take heed that the events of the spring may fore­shadow things to come in his sec­ond term, par­tic­u­larly as the iron-ore mines are sit­u­ated in regions dom­i­nated by the president’s Temne eth­nic group. In Sierra Leone, party mem­ber­ship has his­tor­i­cally cor­re­lated quite strongly with eth­nic iden­tity. Thus, Koroma’s real test will be to dis­trib­ute the ben­e­fits of Sierra Leone’s growth across the coun­try. In addi­tion, if the APC pulls off a strong elec­toral show­ing in the par­lia­men­tary races, observers should be wary of fur­ther defec­tions to the APC. Fur­ther con­sol­i­da­tion of power by the APC may harken back to the one-party APC state that ruled Sierra Leone from the late ’60s to the early ’90s.

If the SLPP pulls off a sur­prise vic­tory in Novem­ber, observers should not over­look two key polit­i­cal risks. The first is the ques­tion of tran­si­tion of power. The APC’s vic­tory in 2007 resulted in the first peace­ful tran­si­tion of power between polit­i­cal par­ties in Sierra Leone’s his­tory. Exter­nal pres­sures to main­tain a func­tion­ing mul­ti­party state are strong, with for­eign assis­tance still com­pris­ing a major­ity of gov­ern­ment rev­enue. How­ever, with a his­tory of coups and recal­ci­trant tran­si­tions, the prospect of the rul­ing party try­ing to hold onto power in spite of elec­toral defeat is still present.

The sec­ond and more salient issue relates to com­ments made this sum­mer by Julius Maada Bio that he would rene­go­ti­ate the iron ore min­ing deals that Koroma’s gov­ern­ment has signed. In an inter­view in Lon­don he hinted that the inter­ests of Sierra Leoneans were not ade­quately rep­re­sented in the exist­ing agree­ments. Expect a fair amount of mar­ket uncer­tainty around the min­ing indus­try as observers sort out elec­tion rhetoric from real inten­tions to shift policy.

This cholera epi­demic will either serve as another reminder of the state of under-development in Sierra Leone, or as an oppor­tu­nity for the gov­ern­ment to dis­play increased effec­tive­ness in respond­ing to the needs of its peo­ple. In either case, with the shadow of the civil war just 10 years ago, a well-run elec­tion and smooth tran­si­tion of power in Novem­ber will be impor­tant beyond just mar­ket sta­bil­ity.