By Samuel Wise Bangura
The Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) champions itself as a bastion of democracy and a vehicle for national progress. Yet, a rigorous examination of its internal governance, particularly as codified in its 2022 Constitution, reveals a starkly different reality; one of entrenched elitism, manufactured consensus, and a democratic deficit that fundamentally contradicts the very ideals the party purports to uphold in the national arena. The party’s internal structure does not merely influence its external democratic posturing; it exposes it as a potentially hollow performance. At the heart of this contradiction lies a constitutional framework that restricts the highest office within the party to a minuscule, self-appointed aristocracy, thereby orchestrating succession from behind a curtain of exclusionary rules.
The most revealing clause is found in Article 6(2)(b) of the SLPP 2022 Constitution, which states verbatim:
“The Leader and Presidential Candidate shall be a Member of the Party who is a Distinguished Grand Chief Patron Member and shall be elected by a National Delegates’ Conference.”
This single, succinct sentence is the linchpin of the SLPP’s internal power dynamics. It creates a two-tiered membership where the ultimate prize; the leadership and, by automatic extension, the presidential candidacy is reserved for those who have attained the rank of “Distinguished Grand Chief Patron Member.” This is not an electoral qualification earned through popular internal mandate, but a titular honour presumably bestowed by the existing party establishment. The constitution effectively gates the race before it even begins, limiting contenders to a circle of insiders deemed worthy by the very system they seek to lead. The practical consequence, as noted, is that under the current unamended constitution, only a handful of individuals; figures like Sulaiman Banja Tejan Sie, John Oponjo Benjamin, Sama Banya, Momodu Koroma, Prince Alex Harding, Jacob Jusu Saffa, and Mohamed Juldeh Jalloh are constitutionally eligible to aspire for the flagbearership. Dozens of other ambitious, potentially capable members are constitutionally disenfranchised at the outset.
This provision did not emerge in a vacuum. It was a direct, calculated response to the party’s traumatic experience leading up to the 2018 elections. That flagbearer contest was famously more bitterly contested than the national election itself, with Julius Maada Bio eventually emerging victorious from a fractured field. The aftermath saw a strategic co-option of rivals, such as the appointment of Dr. Alie Kabba, who placed second. To prevent a recurrence of such divisive and publicly damaging contests, the party engineered a constitutional shortcut. By merging the offices of Leader and Presidential Candidate, and stipulating that the sitting President, already the Leader, would be the automatic flagbearer, the 2022 Constitution guaranteed Bio’s uncontested re-nomination in 2023. This move traded internal democratic contest for managed stability and incumbent protection. The problem, however, arises when that incumbent’s tenure ends. The system, designed to avoid one problem, has created a far more deep one: a succession crisis managed by a tiny oligarchy.
The current predicament revolves around the constitutional review process ostensibly initiated to address this very issue. After the 2023 elections, President Bio, as Leader, appointed Chief Minister, David Moinina Sengeh, to chair a Constitutional Review Committee. The apparent intent, widely speculated, was to broaden the eligibility criteria and open the field for the post-Bio era. However, this process has descended into a fog of obscurity and apparent failure. One school of thought claims the Sengeh Committee’s report was “vehemently rejected” by the party’s National Executive Council (NEC). Another asserts the report was never formally compiled or presented, and that the committee’s tenure has simply expired. This bureaucratic limbo is politically potent. It leaves every aspiring member who is not a Distinguished Grand Chief Patron in a state of suspended animation, their political futures hostage to an internal process that lacks transparency or clear resolution.
This is where the constitution provides a potential, yet deeply problematic, escape route. Article 8(4) details the powers of the National Executive Council, stating:
“The National Executive Council shall have the power to make proposals for the amendment of this Constitution and Rules and Regulations for endorsement by the National Delegates Conference, and shall have responsibility for the implementation of the decisions of the National Delegates Conference.”
The critical phrase is “make proposals for the amendment.” This vests immense power in the NEC, a body dominated by the party’s executive and senior figures. It creates a pathway where, should the formal review committee process fail, the executive could potentially bring direct resolutions to the NEC to alter the eligibility criteria or interpret the rules in a more inclusive manner. This mechanism places the fate of the party’s democratic integrity squarely in the hands of a few dozen individuals. It reduces a fundamental question of political participation to a backroom negotiation, a “resolution” to be “endorsed.”
This presents several critical and troubling questions that strike at the core of the SLPP’s democratic credentials:
If democracy is the party’s national gospel, why is it anathema within its own walls? How can a party that campaigns on national platforms of opportunity and inclusion justify a system where the chance to lead is a birthright for fewer than ten individuals? The argument that it ensures quality or loyalty is significantly anti-democratic; democracy rests on the premise that the electorate, in this case, the party delegates, are sovereign in judging both quality and loyalty.
Is the constitutional impasse a feature, not a bug? The collapse of the Sengeh review and the expiry of its tenure benefit a specific class: the currently eligible. Does the ambiguity and delay serve to stifle potential challengers, creating a chilling effect where non-patron members are discouraged from building platforms, lest the rules never change? This is a classic tactic of controlled politics: maintain a restrictive rule, dangle the possibility of change, and then manage the ensuing uncertainty to the advantage of the status quo.
Who does the party truly belong to? By restricting ultimate power to Distinguished Grand Chief Patron Members, the constitution answers this question unequivocally: it belongs to a proprietary elite. The rank-and-file members, the youth leaguer, the grassroots mobilize; their role is reduced to foot soldiers for a dynasty they cannot join. This is not a mass party in a democratic sense; it is a franchise operated by a closed board of directors.
Can a resolution from the NEC truly democratise the party? Even if the NEC, using its power under Article 8(4), proposes and secures endorsement for a more inclusive rule, this process itself is top-down. It is democracy by dispensation from the elite, not an organic, bottom-up demand institutionalised in the party’s foundational law. It reinforces the power of the centre to grant or withhold political rights, making any future openness precarious and reversible by a subsequent NEC.
The practical implications are severe. It risks demobilising the party’s base, as ambitious second-tier leaders may see no future within the SLPP and either disengage or cause internal friction. It projects an image of fear; fear of open competition, fear of robust debate, fear of the unpredictable will of its own membership. Most damningly, it exposes a glaring hypocrisy. A party that presents itself as the defender of Sierra Leone’s democratic journey has constructed an internal monarchy for its crown jewels.
For the dozens of capable SLPP members who are not Distinguished Grand Chief Patrons but harbour legitimate ambitions to lead, the message from the 2022 Constitution is clear: you are tenants in the house, not heirs to it. Your fate rests not on your merit, your vision, or your connection to the party base, but on the magnanimity of the NEC to possibly pass a resolution to amend the rules that currently exclude you. This is the antithesis of democratic empowerment.
The SLPP’s internal constitutional architecture is a mirror reflecting its deepest contradictions. The trumpeting of democracy on the national stage is undermined by the silencing of democratic contest within. The 2022 Constitution, with its restrictive Article 6(2)(b) and the elite-controlled amendment process of Article 8(4), is not a document designed to nurture leadership through open struggle of ideas. It is a tool for risk management, elite preservation, and the orderly; and limited transfer of power. Until the party finds the courage to subject its leadership to the same free and fair electoral principles it demands for the nation, its proclaimed democratic faith will remain, in essence, a performance; a trumpeted democracy indeed, but one whose sound grows increasingly hollow to those who listen closely to the silence it imposes on its own. The path to 2028 will reveal whether the party’s executive and NEC choose to open the gates, or whether they will continue to guard a palace where only a select few have the key.