SLPP Can’t Shift 2028 Elections 

By Alpha Amadu Jalloh

Sierra Leone is entering a political season in which words are becoming almost as consequential as laws. At a time when controversy over constitutional amendments has already created anxiety, suspicion and political division, statements coming from senior figures within the Sierra Leone People’s Party should be calming the country, not creating more questions. Yet the recent posture and pronouncements attributed to the Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) Publicity Secretary, Moses Mambu, appear to be doing precisely the opposite.

The question Sierra Leoneans must now ask is simple: are there going to be General Elections in 2028?

This should never have become a difficult question. President Julius Maada Bio was elected for a second term in 2023 under a constitutional arrangement understood by Sierra Leoneans to provide a five-year presidential mandate. Ordinarily, therefore, citizens should be looking towards 2028 as the next presidential and parliamentary election year. Anything suggesting otherwise deserves serious explanation, especially when the country is simultaneously debating controversial constitutional changes.

Mambu’s public statements and the extraordinary reverence increasingly being attached to President Bio within sections of the SLPP raise concerns that go beyond ordinary party politics. Political parties naturally praise their leaders. Publicity officers naturally defend their governments. There is nothing unusual about that. But there must be a boundary between political loyalty and the creation of a personality cult.

President Bio is the President of Sierra Leone. He is also an influential figure within the SLPP. But he is not the SLPP itself, just as the SLPP is not Sierra Leone.

That distinction matters.

The disturbing impression being created is that President Bio has become so dominant within the party that virtually every important political decision must revolve around him, including who succeeds him as SLPP flagbearer. If party officials are already speaking as though the President will determine who carries the party into the next presidential election, then what becomes of internal democracy? Why should potential candidates campaign? Why should delegates vote? Why should the party maintain structures and procedures for electing its presidential candidate if the outcome can effectively be determined by one individual?

Even more troubling is rhetoric asking party supporters to give their lives to the President. Politics should never demand that kind of personal surrender. Sierra Leone has travelled through too much violence, political intolerance and national trauma for political leaders to casually employ language that elevates loyalty to an individual above loyalty to country, Constitution and conscience.

Citizens should give their loyalty to Sierra Leone. Party members may support their leaders passionately, but no democratic politician should become an object of unquestionable devotion.

This is particularly sensitive because Sierra Leone is already dealing with a constitutional controversy that has generated deep disagreement among political parties, civil society actors, lawyers and ordinary citizens. Against that background, statements concerning 2028 or 2030 cannot simply be dismissed as political entertainment. If anybody occupying an official position within the governing party suggests that elections could take place later than constitutionally expected, Sierra Leoneans are entitled to ask where that information originated.

Was Mambu expressing a personal opinion? Was he speaking for the SLPP? Was he interpreting the proposed constitutional changes? Was he communicating something discussed internally within the party? Or was his statement simply political rhetoric that went too far?

These questions require answers.

There is another uncomfortable reality that the SLPP should remember. Sierra Leoneans have repeatedly criticised the All People’s Congress (APC) when governments under the APC were accused of concentrating power, dominating state institutions or creating excessive loyalty around their leaders. The SLPP cannot condemn yesterday what it appears prepared to tolerate today.

That is where the old political mentality of “if APC can do it, SLPP can do it too” becomes dangerous.

Democracy cannot operate on revenge or precedent. A wrong committed by one political party does not become right when committed by another. If the APC abused power yesterday, the answer is not for the SLPP to abuse power today. If the APC weakened institutions, the answer is not for the SLPP to weaken them further. Democracy progresses when succeeding governments correct previous mistakes, not when they inherit them as privileges.

President Bio himself should be concerned about the language being used around his presidency. Excessive praise can become politically poisonous. Leaders sometimes receive the greatest damage from people who claim to love them most because such people create an atmosphere in which criticism becomes disloyalty and disagreement becomes betrayal.

The President does not need people telling Sierra Leoneans to surrender themselves to him. He needs party officials capable of defending his record intelligently while respecting democratic boundaries.

He should also make his position regarding 2028 unmistakably clear if uncertainty continues. Sierra Leone does not need political riddles surrounding something as fundamental as the date of its next presidential election.

The controversy becomes even more serious when discussions about constitutional amendments are occurring near the closing years of an administration. Constitutional reform should never appear designed around the political convenience of an incumbent government. Constitutions are supposed to survive presidents, parties and generations. Any amendment touching elections, presidential tenure, electoral systems or the balance of political power must therefore receive extraordinary scrutiny.

The SLPP must also ask itself what kind of party it intends to become after President Bio. Political parties that become completely dependent upon one leader frequently struggle when that leader eventually leaves. Strong parties build institutions. Weak parties build personalities.

If President Bio is genuinely committed to leaving behind a democratic legacy, one of his greatest contributions to the SLPP would be allowing the party to choose its next flagbearer freely, transparently and competitively. Whoever succeeds him should emerge because party delegates made that decision, not because everyone was instructed beforehand where to stand.

Mambu and other SLPP officials should understand the weight of their words. They are no longer speaking merely as opposition politicians fighting an incumbent government. Their party controls the presidency and government. Statements that might once have sounded like political mobilisation can now affect public confidence in democratic institutions.

Sierra Leoneans are therefore justified in asking: No elections in 2028?

If the answer is that elections will constitutionally proceed in 2028, then governing party officials should stop creating unnecessary ambiguity around the matter. If somebody believes otherwise, that person should explain the constitutional and legal basis upon which such a belief rests.

Sierra Leone belongs neither to APC nor SLPP. Presidents come and go. Publicity secretaries come and go. Chief Ministers come and go. Political parties themselves rise and fall. What must remain is the Republic and the democratic institutions upon which its stability depends.

The greatest danger is not merely what one politician says. It is the political culture being normalised around those words: excessive presidential glorification, uncertainty surrounding succession, unquestioning loyalty and constitutional controversy unfolding simultaneously.

That combination should worry every Sierra Leonean.

President Bio does not need worshippers. The SLPP does not need disciples. Sierra Leone needs democrats.