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INFO RUEHZK/ECOWAS COLLECTIVE
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UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 FREETOWN 000499 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
SENSITIVE 
 
E.O. 12958 
TAGS: PGOV KDEM SL
SUBJECT: SIERRA LEONE PREPARES FOR 2007 ELECTIONS 
 
Ref: A. 05 Freetown 960, B. 05 Freetown 745 
 
------- 
Summary 
------- 
 
1.(SBU) The National Electoral Commission (NEC) is busily 
laying the groundwork for credible 2007 presidential and 
parliamentary elections critical to Sierra Leone's 
continued peaceful development.  President Kabbah intends 
to announce at the June 23 opening of Parliament that 
elections will be next May, but the UN is quietly 
advocating a later election date.  The NEC is demarcating 
politically contentious boundaries for constituencies 
based on the 2004 census, and then will register voters. 
Although the return to the constitutionally mandated 
constituency-based, plurality voting system will make 
parliamentarians theoretically more accountable to 
voters, some observers object that this system caused 
political polarization and other problems in Sierra 
Leone's past.  The NEC plans a voter education drive, but 
urgently needs funding beyond what the government and UN 
have provided.  Political maneuvering ahead of the 
official campaign period has been denounced by the NEC. 
Police are planning training so that appropriate 
restraint will be exercised during the campaign.  End 
Summary. 
 
--------------------------- 
NEC Continues Election Prep 
Per Implementation Calendar 
--------------------------- 
 
2.(U) The reformed National Electoral Commission (NEC), 
under the dynamic leadership of former civil society 
leader Christiana Thorpe, has made progress with the wide 
array of preparations necessary before the 2007 
presidential and parliamentary elections. 
 
3.(U) In addition to training its own staff in how to 
organize, run, and oversee elections, the NEC is working 
with the Law Reform Commission and others to rewrite and 
consolidate disparate electoral laws.  They are also 
completing a nationwide boundary delimitation to redraw 
constituency boundaries for the first time since 1985. 
 
4.(U) Once the boundary delimitation is complete, NEC 
officials will begin voter registration.  The aim is to 
create a permanent voter's register, which will make 
voter rolls less vulnerable to manipulation. 
 
---------------------------------------- 
Boundary Delimitation: Adding Opposition 
Seats in Parliament Raises SLPP Hackles 
---------------------------------------- 
 
5.(U) One of the most contentious activities on the NEC's 
agenda has been the nationwide boundary delimitation 
exercise.  Since constituency lines have not been redrawn 
since 1986 and ward boundaries since 1956, they vary 
widely in population.  To compound the problem, elections 
in 1996 and 2002 did not even use existing constituency 
boundaries, since the proportional representation 
electoral system was used.  Since 2002, each of Sierra 
Leone's 14 districts has had eight parliamentary seats. 
 
6.(U) The new boundaries use mainly three criteria: the 
total number of Parliamentary seats (determined by 
Parliament); the nationwide population according to the 
most recent census (conducted in December 2004); and 
boundaries of existing communities (which is negotiable 
and will rely at least in part on community input). 
 
7.(U) Parliament retained the total number of 
parliamentary seats, which meant that the existing 112 
parliamentary seats were reallocated according to the 
2004 census.  Not surprisingly, the Western Urban 
District (including the capital Freetown) was the biggest 
winner, gaining 9 Parliamentary seats for a total of 17. 
The biggest loser was Bonthe District, a stronghold of 
the ruling Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP), which lost 
five seats, leaving it only three seats in Parliament. 
 
8.(U) Of the seven districts that sent only SLPP 
representatives to Parliament, there was a net loss of 
 
FREETOWN 00000499  002 OF 004 
 
 
four seats.  Of the three districts that sent a majority 
of SLPP representatives to Parliament, there was a net 
loss of eight seats.  Of the three districts that sent a 
majority of opposition All People's Congress (APC) 
representatives to Parliament, there was a net gain of 
three seats.  In the Western Urban District, where the 
APC controls the Freetown city council, there is a 4/2/2 
split between the ruling SLPP and two opposition parties 
(the APC and People's Leadership Party (PLP)).  The APC 
is expected to win most of the nine new seats. 
 
9.(SBU) When the NEC announced the district seat 
reallocations, the ruling SLPP protested vociferously.  A 
headline appeared on the front page of the SLPP party 
newspaper "Unity" that read, "Electoral Commission 
Infringes the Law."  The article went on to complain that 
the NEC had violated the Constitution and bypassed 
Parliament.  There were later complaints about the loss 
of so many seats in Bonthe District, which the SLPP 
readily admitted is sparsely populated but retains 
sentimental significance.  (Comment: These initial 
protests have since subsided, perhaps because the SLPP 
believes the new seat allocation will not reverse its 
majority in Parliament.  End Comment.) 
 
10.(U)  Although seat allocations are now finished, the 
process of drawing constituency boundaries is still in 
progress.  Statistics Sierra Leone (SSL), which conducted 
the 2004 census with European Commission support, has 
only one set of paper maps with census enumeration areas 
handwritten on them.  During the census, SSL staff took 
Global Positioning System (GPS) coordinates of each 
village, so that the villages could be placed on 
digitized maps.  It has taken a while to computerize the 
maps, in part because GPS data from one area in Sierra 
Leone placed villages outside the country's borders or in 
the Atlantic Ocean.  UNDP elections consultant Dr. Lisa 
Handley wrote in a September 2005 boundary delimitation 
report that such errors are not unusual - the same thing 
happened in Liberia in 2004 when the military was asked 
to provide GPS coordinates for Voting Registration 
Centers.  Once the maps are digitized, however, 
Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software makes it 
relatively easy to delimit constituency boundaries. 
 
11.(U) Once the boundaries are drawn, NEC staff will hold 
public consultations nationwide to solicit comments.  The 
NEC will consider recommendations for boundary changes 
that make sense according to the delimitation criteria 
(geographic features, population density, community 
distribution, and existing boundaries of chiefdoms and 
other administrative areas). 
 
----------------------------------- 
Back to the Future: Plurality vs. 
Proportional Representation Systems 
----------------------------------- 
 
12.(U) Perhaps the most significant change for the 
upcoming elections is the return to constitutionally 
mandated constituency-based, plurality voting system. 
Elections in 1996 and 2002 used two different variations 
of the proportional representation (PR) voting system, 
primarily because there were huge population 
displacements and large areas of the country that were 
inaccessible during the 11-year civil war. 
 
13.(U) NEC officials and others hope that the return to 
the constituency-based, "First Past The Post" (FPTP) 
system will bring greater accountability of 
parliamentarians to their constituencies.  PR critics say 
that Sierra Leoneans voted for political party symbols 
(the SLPP's palm tree or the APC's rising sun) instead of 
individual candidates, which meant that representatives 
were more beholden to senior party officials than the 
people who elected them into office. 
 
14.(SBU) The return to the FPTP system is not universally 
supported, however.  Dr. Abubakarr Kargbo, a prominent 
political science professor, has argued that the FPTP 
system has historically been a political disaster for 
Sierra Leone - not only because constituent 
accountability never materialized when the system was in 
place before 1996, but also because it exploited ethnic 
differences, encouraged electoral violence, and 
 
FREETOWN 00000499  003 OF 004 
 
 
discouraged wide political representation.  Kargbo places 
some of the responsibility for the country's devolution 
to civil war on the poorly managed FPTP electoral system. 
 
------------------------ 
Setting the Date in 2007 
------------------------ 
 
15.(SBU) President Kabbah told the Ambassador on June 16 
that he intends to announce at the June 23 opening of 
Parliament that the elections will be held in May 2007. 
He conceded that holding both elections on the same date 
might be legally impossible despite the considerable 
saving and political convenience of doing so.  Noting his 
admiration for the few amendments to the U.S. 
Constitution, Kabbah said that he would not tinker with 
the Sierra Leone Constitution to accommodate the 
elections. Kabbah also reiterated his desire to retire, a 
further indication that the elections will be sooner 
rather than later.  During the meeting, Kabbah asked an 
aide to convene legal experts, which indicates that even 
he has not yet settled on a precise date next May. 
 
16.(U) The 1991 National Constitution dictates that 
Parliament shall be dissolved five years after the date 
of its first sitting after the general election.  New 
parliamentary elections can occur up to 30 days before 
and 90 days after the dissolution date.  The president 
also sits for a five-year term, and those elections are 
supposed to occur within the first three months of his 
last four months in office or within three months of the 
post becoming vacant. 
 
17.(U) There is broad consensus among Sierra Leoneans and 
the international community for simultaneous presidential 
and parliamentary elections because of the cost savings 
of a single election and because politicians' fear that 
the electorate will lose interest in the parliamentary 
election if the presidential election is held first, but 
as Kabbah stated, this may be constitutionally 
impossible.  (Note: By our count, parliamentary elections 
should occur between May 26 and September 23, 2007.  The 
ostensible window for presidential elections would be 
between February 19 and April 19, 2007 unless President 
Kabbah takes some other kind of action, like retiring 
early.  End Note.) 
 
--------------------------- 
Education, Oversight Needed 
To Make Democracy Work 
--------------------------- 
 
18.(U) Voter education is a key component of the NEC's 
strategy for making the upcoming elections free and fair. 
A nationwide campaign using print, radio and television 
is planned, but Sierra Leone's mostly illiterate 
population who are accustomed to being influenced with 
rice by political hopefuls and pressured by their local 
chiefs to vote for certain candidates, have a steep 
learning curve.  The NEC just completed a nationwide 
campaign to educate Sierra Leoneans on the constituency 
allocation and boundary delimitation process.  The 
campaign was meant help Sierra Leoneans understand how 
the election process works so they can own the process as 
it moves forward.  The next step, once the digitized maps 
are completed and draft constituency boundaries drawn, 
will be to circulate them for comment and revision.  NEC 
staffers have said that the first round of education has 
been very successful, and even schoolchildren have had a 
chance to play with the maps and numbers and see how the 
process works. 
 
19.(U) Although the NEC has made significant progress, 
officials concede that funding has become an impediment 
that could derail their calendar for election 
preparations.  Although the Sierra Leone Government and 
UNDP had supported the NEC, pledges from the European 
Commission and the British have not materialized, and 
other major donors, including the U.S., have not been 
forthcoming to date.  In addition the Political Parties 
Registration Commission (PPRC), which as established 
inter alia to resolve campaign complaints, is severely 
underfunded. 
 
20.(U) Political maneuvering is already in full swing, 
 
FREETOWN 00000499  004 OF 004 
 
 
and there have been multiple reports that the SLPP is 
using its incumbency inappropriately.  Vice President 
Berewa, the SLPP's 2007 presidential nominee, has 
reportedly been using his frequent upcountry visits to 
launch public projects as political rallies.  Post has 
seen an attempt to politicize an Ambassador's Special 
Self Help Fund project with prominent local SLPP and APC 
activists vying for control and credit.  There have also 
been reports that local authorities in SLPP-dominant 
districts have prevented the opposition APC from holding 
political meetings.  NEC Commissioner Thorpe recently 
condemned early campaigning ahead of the official 
campaign period and said that incidents of wrongdoing are 
being monitored and will later be raised to the PPRC, 
which is responsible for enforcing electoral laws. Thorpe 
is also one of the PPRC Commissioners. 
 
--------------------------- 
Security: A Serious Concern 
--------------------------- 
 
21.(U) Like peas and carrots, elections and violence have 
frequently been seen together throughout Sierra Leone's 
history.  Police are already cracking down in an attempt 
to maintain order: in November 2005, they arrested 
People's Movement For Democratic Change (PMDC) leader 
Charles Margai in Bo for an alleged violation of the 
Public Order Act (see ref A).  In June, police in Bo 
chased down a foreigner who photographed an SLPP parade 
where Vice President Berewa was present and arrested two 
Sierra Leoneans who gave him shelter in their internet 
cafe.  The press reported that the police will deploy 200 
armed police to Biriwa Chiefdom, Bombali District on June 
16 to allow a chiefdom candidate declaration ceremony to 
go forward.  Previous attempts to have the ceremony, 
press reports say, have been cancelled because of 
violence.  In May, a policeman in Kailahun told an 
Embassy staffer that he plans to be on leave during the 
2007 elections because he has fears about what will 
happen. (Note: Many young men in Kailahun vocally support 
Charles Margai.  End Note.) 
 
22.(SBU) Plans are being made to prevent political and 
police violence.  The American head of the UN police 
liaison unit recently briefed the Ambassador on pre- 
election training that will be given to the police in 
crowd control.  The objective, he said, will be to make 
the police capable of handling different levels of 
demonstrations instead of their two current modes: 
passivity and over-reaction. 
 
------- 
Comment 
------- 
 
23.(U) Peaceful, free, and fair elections in 2007 will be 
crucial to Sierra Leone's continuing political 
maturation, and the NEC's efforts to reform the electoral 
process and educate the public represent Sierra Leone's 
best hope for achieving them.  The NEC has a long, hard 
slog ahead, though, and it may not be possible to 
complete everything they are planning to do before the 
election (e.g., the permanent voter's register and 
delimiting ward boundaries for local elections in 2008). 
It will be crucial in the months ahead to keep the 
spotlight on politicians of all stripes to ensure that 
partisan activities do not break Sierra Leone's fragile 
peace. 
HULL