Sierra Leone - Politics

Presidential and parliamentary elections under the 1991 multiparty constitution were held in February 1996 (see the section entitled ‘Civil war’ under ‘History’). Of the 68 parliamentary seats, Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) held 27, United National People’s Party (UNPP) 17, People’s Democratic Party 12, the All People’s Congress (APC) five, the National Unity Party four, the Democratic Centre Party three. In a two-round presidential election SLPP candidate Ahmad Tejan Kabbah defeated UNPP’s Dr John Karefa-Smart and Kabbah was sworn in as president at the end of March.

In May 1997 the Kabbah government was overthrown in a military coup but in October 1997, in a deal brokered by ECOWAS in Conakry, Guinea, the rebel regime agreed to a six-month transition to the restoration of the legitimate civilian government. After nine months in exile in Conakry, President Kabbah returned to Freetown in March 1998. The National Assembly reconvened and about 50% of its members attended.

In July 1998 the UN agreed to establish an observer mission to monitor the military and security situation in the country and to advise the government on the rebuilding of the police and security forces. After a period when rebel activity intensified a wider peace agreement was signed in July 1999.

UN peacekeepers proceeded with disarming rebel troops and took control over a growing area of the country, so that in May 2002 the legislative and presidential elections originally scheduled for February/March 2001 were finally held with Commonwealth observers present. Kabbah and the SLPP won a landslide victory, receiving about 70% of the votes in the presidential election, defeating Ernest Bai Koroma, and in the parliamentary elections taking 83 of the 112 seats; Koroma’s APC gained 22 and the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) none. Commonwealth observers said that the conditions were such as to enable the will of the people to be expressed.

In June 2004 special courts with Sierra Leonean and UN-appointed judges began trying those both on government and rebel sides of the civil war accused of war crimes.
In the parliamentary elections in August 2007, the APC was the largest party with 59 seats, the SLPP 43 and People’s Movement for Democratic Change (PMDC) ten. The simultaneous first round of the presidential election was won by APC leader Ernest Bai Koroma with 44% of votes; the ruling SLPP candidate, Solomon Berewa, came second with 38% and Charles Margai of PMDC third with 14%. Since no candidate received the 55% needed to secure the presidency, the leading two candidates, Koroma and Berewa, went into a second round. Koroma received 54.6% of second-round votes and was sworn in as president. Commonwealth observers reported that both parliamentary and presidential elections had been conducted in a democratic, credible and professional way in accordance with internationally accepted standards.