At long last, the mediated dialogue between the ruling Sierra Leone People’s Party SLPP and the opposition All People’s Congress APC to break the political stalemate in the country begins tomorrow in Freetown, with the Commonwealth, the African Union AU and the Economic Community of West African States ECOWAS overseeing as negotiators. The outcome of the dialogue will determine whether elected MPs, Mayors, and Councillors who had boycotted their seats in protest over the rigging of the 2023 elections. (Photo: SLPP greeting APC yesterday).

As confirmed by the U.S., Britain, France, Netherlands and international elections observers including the Carter Centre, the European Union EU Observer Mission, and the National Elections Watch NEW of Sierra Leone – will return and the opposition will work with the ruling SLPP to govern Sierra Leone. The United States, angry with the scale and impunity of the rigging of the elections by the SLPP, has suspended the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC US $ 400 million grant won by the government and imposed travel bans on all those who undermined the elections in Sierra Leone.

The U.S. has appealed to the MPs, mayors, and councilors to return to parliament and the councils to take their seats, while giving the SLPP the conditions to dialogue with the opposition and to make meaningful reforms that will forestall the occurrence of election rigging in Sierra Leone. The U.S demand is however a difficult proposition for the APC because the grassroots of the party have rejected any suggestion of MPs, Mayors, and councillors taking their seats and are demanding that the 2023 elections be rerun in the interests of strengthening and deepening democracy in Sierra Leone.

This newspaper has been sounding the opinions of grassroots members of the APC and stakeholders and supporters of the party and from all their responses, the APC rank-and-file have resolved not to go back to Parliament or the councils and only want a rerun of the elections. Social media is also seething with audio and videos produced by partisans of the APC demanding a rerun of the elections. Some of the audio and videos are replete with very harsh language and even profanities and threatening remarks about dire consequences for the leadership of the APC if it accepts any resolution of this governance stalemate order rather than a rerun of the elections.

Last week, the EU released its final report on the elections and it was damning and damaging to the SLPP, providing statistical data and facts to conclude that no presidential candidate reached the threshold of 55% to avoid a runoff. In essence, the EU demonstrated that nobody won the elections and insinuated that it was fraudulent of the Elections Commission of Sierra Leone ECSL to declare the SLPP‘s presidential candidate, Maada Bio, as the winner of the elections. I spoke to some SLPP supporters and they rejected the notion of a rerun of the elections. They asserted that only the Supreme Court has the power to annul an election and order a rerun.

They said that the APC bungled the opportunity to have the Supreme Court make any decision because the APC failed to file a lawsuit at the court challenging the results of the elections. Also, as far as they are concerned, the SLPP won the elections. The results of the 2023 elections by the chairman of the Sierra Leone Elections Commission, Mr. Mohamed Konneh, exacerbated the political crises in the country and produced a governance impasse with the APC boycott that prompted the intervention of the Commonwealth, the AU, and ECOWAS. It remains to be seen what this mediated dialogue will achieve, with relations between the SLPP and APC seriously polarized and supporters of both parties apparently holding firm to their respective positions.