Oped: Does Massive Crowd During Elections Campaigns Guarantee Victory in Elections?

As we are getting closer to the June 24th Presidential, Parliamentary and Local Councils’ elections, Sierra Leoneans are up to the political deception and ruse again.

I have been following the campaign trail or pawmark by the two main political parties ie the ruling Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP), and the main opposition All People’s Congress (APC) whereby each party trying to demonstrate that it has more crowd than the other.

To be honest, both parties are towing and tugging massive crowd during their campaigns in the major cities and towns across the country.

But supporters of each party keep accusing each other of renting crowd and ferrying their supporters from one city or town to another.

From experience, Sierra Leoneans over the years have developed and resorted to political tricks of dancing and collecting largesse from all the parties, while voting for the party of their choice on the day of elections.

In 2018, I had the privilege to engage with many ordinary Sierra Leoneans who participated in both APC and SLPP rallies and some of them told me that they were dancing for the APC by then in order to get money and t-shirts distributed to them.

Are they employing the same tricks this time round? Are we going to see the same tricks this year?

By the looks of things, Sierra Leoneans have developed the idea of deceiving the politicians who had been deceiving the ordinary Sierra Leoneans and the country for the past decades.

In 2018, some people would have two t-shirts, one red and one green and they would put them on depending on which party was rallying on that day.

Clearly, both parties move with many of their supporters from one place to another during campaign period.

For example, the ruling APC party 2018 and ruling SLPP party in 2023 move with large crowd including ministers and MDAs with supporters anywhere the President was/is going to campaign.

They would pretend as if the large crowd were from a particular city or town they had visited but in actual fact a good number of people would have been transported into the said town or city a schedule campaign was going to take place.

So, the aforementioned pattern by the Sierra Leoneans who dance for both parties and the modus of ferrying supporters along with the political leaders, it is hard to judge as to which party is going to win the elections.

How do you determine a genuine crowd? Let us say if one adds up all the large crowd pulled by both parties; you will find out that the numbers would far more exceed the total number of registered voters in the country.

Despite this, people continue to embark on self-deception by believing these crowds.

However, some opposition supporters argued that their crowd was genuine because the opposition party didn’t have money to dish out to people in order to come out for their rallies, while some of the ruling party supporters countered that the large crowd was a demonstration of appreciation and love for Mr. President.

But the question is, does large crowd during the ruling party campaign a suggestion or an indication that the ruling party has delivered the promises in it manifesto and that those who throng and swarm to the street dancing and singing are better off than they were five years ago? Are these crowds reflecting the reality on the ground?

Additionally, are these people who put on both political parties’ t-shirts and dance to the songs of both SLPP and APC genuine supporters, or political hustlers making good use of the political seasons to get immediate pittance from the various political operators?

To the political parties’ leaders, do you honestly believe these crowds will guarantee your party victory in this election?

In my view, considering past events, only the elections results would confirm which crowd was genuine.

It is on that basis, I call on the Election Commission Sierra Leone (ECSL) to ensure that the elections be free, fair, transparent, and credible. Only then will Sierra Leoneans ascertain which of the crowd was genuine and which one was a phony and sham.

It is on this note, I ask whether massive crowd during campaign guarantees election victory in Sierra Leone.
I rest my case.