Rating Change: Sierra Leone Invokes Wartime Clause To Change Voting System
Published date | 28 October 2022 |
Subject Matter | Government, Public Sector, Constitutional & Administrative Law |
Law Firm | Songhai Advisory LLP |
Author | Songhai Advisory LLP |
President Maada Bio has ordered the Electoral Commission of Sierra Leone (ECSL) to change the voting system as he struggles to shake off the effects of a popular uprising and seek re-election in June 2023. Under the proposed system, voters will no longer elect their representatives directly. Instead, they will use a proportional representation system that was improvised during the country's civil war when there were no established constituencies. This change continues a sequence of events that have stoked political tension in the country and dampened the risk outlook for a peaceful government transition.
Significance - Sequence and cycles
On 20 October, President Bio told the ECSL to organise the 2023 general elections using proportional representation. This voting system was used in 1996 when civil war made parts of the country inaccessible and in 2002 when the war had newly ended. In both cases, voters were only able to vote for their preferred parties. Each party was then allocated seats in the national parliament according to its share of total votes.
Sierra Leone has since held three relatively peaceful electoral cycles using a single-member system where every eligible Sierra Leonean directly votes for an MP to represent their own constituency in the national parliament. However, the current cycle has been particularly turbulent owing to developments in the timeline below.
- April 2018 - The All People's Congress (APC) lost the presidency but retained a majority in parliament. The Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP) became the new ruling party with Julius Maada Bio at the helm.
- May 2019 - A court removed 10 APC MPs-elect and ruled they were unqualified to run for office under the electoral law. SLPP candidates then took the vacant seats and the party claimed a majority. Opposition leaders were arrested for protesting against the development. This marked the onset of the current political unrest.
- July 2020 - President Bio ordered Statistics Sierra Leone to conduct a new census to 'correct the anomaly' of the last census held in 2015 when he and his SLPP were in the opposition. That 2015 census had reportedly been rigged by the then-ruling APC to gain an electoral advantage.
- December 2021 - A new census was held even though the World Bank, a major partner, withdrew technical and financial support citing inadequate preparation. The results this time showed an extraordinary rise in population in SLPP strongholds. The ECSL then announced that it would...
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