Sierra Leone News: The APC Incumbency Factor

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With the rather frightening preponderance of activities powered by political parties one hardly knows the line between campaigning and voter education. Given that we already have 14 registered parties and 6 or more Movements waiting to be registered, you can imagine the kind of chaotic environment a place like Freetown can be. In all the ruling party rides high as it has got all it takes to kick the rules in the ass and throw caution to the winds. The Ruling Party, when ever in power, is reported as demonstrating a superfluous vulgar display of wealth, sometimes even splashing the green papers on the streets during campaigns. What is rather scary, is the huge incumbency advantages that the sitting government always has. I just googled the word “incumbency” and I’m told an incumbent in politics is the existing holder of a political office. This term is usually used when someone is talking about an election because political races can be held between incumbents and non-incumbents. An example of an incumbent election race would be the 2012 U.S. Presidential Race in which Barrack Obama was the incumbent because he was the president in the previous term. To domesticate the terminology to our situational reality, we are actually talking about party incumbency since in Sierra Leone with some 70% illiterate, poor and gullible population plus most of their enlightened but uncritical compatriots vote for parties and not necessarily the presidential candidate. Our greatest dilemma in politics is the uncritical clinging to our regions, ethnicity and regionalism with more than religious devotion. Some people even say they were born into parties and that party blood flows in their veins. My God the gullibility of the average Sierra Leonean stinks to hell and even Satan is surprised at us. There is another stereotypical reality in our political trajectory and that is at the second and final terms in government, their performance becomes so untoward and disgusting. Take the current situation: just too many scandals galore; if public officials are not looting Hajj Funds, they are pilfering Ebola funds; If they are not misappropriating benefits of WIAs, they are sliding Mudslide victims survival support; if they are not incarcerating a perceived arrogant and hard-hitting opponent, their Ministers are undressing themselves in public! Sometimes you wonder whether it is not for all these bad and inhuman acts of ours against our fellow beings that we are punished as a nation. Get into the history of our two dominant parties and see how they have fared on the humanity front. You will definitely see thousands of cupboards full of skeletons with some even dripping with fresh human blood. Come on; don’t tell me you do not know. Oh sorry perhaps you are a beneficiary of this terrible Babylon system that keeps suffocating every living thing to extinction. We have seen incumbents throw money around as it they were groundnuts for starving chicken. Even in the greatest democracy, the US of A, history has shown that incumbency in a congressional race has an advantage. In fact, between 1964 and 2008, the incumbent in Congress was reelected over 85% of the time! In the same token in Sierra Leone, after the return of democracy some 21 years ago, President Kabbah won his second term and also president Koroma won his second term. What is interesting now is that although the president is rounding off his second and final term, he actually hand-picked his successor and running Mate and his photo appears with them on Bill Boards all over the city and beyond. The President is even setting the agenda for his party. Can you blame him, given that he was recently made the Life Chairman and Leader of the Party at their party Youth Summit? What is wrong with this is that it is at variance with the National Constitution that stresses that parties should work within the tenets of Democracy. What guarantee do we have that a party that puts aside our national constitution can deliver democracy if elected to power? Well because very few Sierra Leoneans bother to analyze the political landscape, undemocratic parties do not need to worry, what is important is the party and its color. The incumbent has a serious and distinct advantage over other parties because, like in our case, has worked for ten years, with people who have successfully gotten him elected to State House before. The state actors the government has worked with already have the connections to people who will donate and have the benefit of knowing what works and, more importantly, what doesn’t. It is also clear that incumbents and their staff have been making contacts throughout their current term. The benefit of these contacts is that they can support Parliamentarians financially during a reelection campaign, especially if the incumbent is making decisions that the Parliament and connections approve of. You remember the issues around the review of the 2016 finance Act that ended up benefitting business people? Another very important thing that gives incumbency advantage is name recognition. In politics, name recognition is the term used to describe the ability of people to recognize a politician’s name. Presidential and Parliamentary candidates with low name recognition are unlikely to be elected. For an incumbent, the individual has had the benefit of public attention. He or She has had her name in the papers, on radio, billboards, and face on television and is easily searched on the Internet. Incumbents must have given plenty of interviews, participated in debates, and have their voting records reviewed regularly. What this means is that during the election for the next term, the incumbent’s name pops up easier on a Google search than the non-incumbent’s name does. On another score, name recognition helps the uneducated voter. If you were unfamiliar with the current candidates for a position, the odds are great that seeing a familiar name on the voting ballot will make you vote for them, even if you know nothing about them other than having heard their name somewhere before. This is why when Dr. Samura Kamara was announced as the APC Flag Bearer, many doubted if they knew him and the slang in vogue in Krio was: You sabi am?, meaning: Do you know him? Another very important incumbency advantage is access to the media which includes mass communication, television, radio, newspapers, and the Internet. Media has a huge influence on politics and social change. An incumbent gives regular interviews or reports as part of their current job as President and Member of Parliament. Although the President and other state actors are not allowed use public funds for campaigning and other party activities, they can certainly use media to get their names and messages out as part of their current role. In our situation we have seen very frivolous spending by the incumbent in amounts far exceeding the party and members’ worth. This financial advantage can easily sway votes in an impoverished and depraved country like ours. A classical bare-faced advantage of an incumbent was the APC’s violation of the clause in the Political Parties Act of 2002 that financial donations to any political party should be from someone eligible to vote or be voted for in Sierra Leone. That the PPRC should work out the limitation of such donation. It was the APC Minister of Information who went on radio and said that they were building a seven-floor multi-purpose edifice with support from China. The ADP Leader Kamaraimba took his up with the PPRC that it was against the spirit of the aforementioned Act. As usual the APC dribbled its way around and the PPRC ruled in their favor. A clear case of incumbency abuse! Well good for the APC, their building if nearing the last floor! If a free society cannot protect the many that are poor, it cannot protect the few who are rich. By Ben Cambayma Wednesday December 06, 2017.

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