The governing Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) has broken its silence and in doing so, drawn a line it says neither Parliament nor political pressure can cross.
The National Executive Council of the SLPP, led by Sir Jimmy Batilo Songa, this week issued a formal response to a press statement from the opposition All People’s Congress and the International Moral Guarantors following the conclusion of their joint meeting on the Tripartite Committee’s Recommendations. The response was measured in tone but firm in direction a party signalling that it welcomes reform, provided reform does not become a vehicle for institutional capture.
At the outset, the SLPP’s executive thanked the International Moral Guarantors for their continued role in keeping Sierra Leone’s fragile post-electoral peace intact. President Julius Maada Bio, the party said, remains fully committed to both the Agreement for National Unity and the Tripartite Committee’s Recommendations. It was a gesture of goodwill. What followed was the harder message.
The SLPP’s central argument rests on Section 32(11) of Sierra Leone’s 1991 Constitution, which explicitly states that the Electoral Commission for Sierra Leone shall not be subject to the direction or control of any person or authority. On that basis, the party insists that any proposed changes to the ECSL or to Parliament’s relationship with it must remain within constitutional bounds. Parliamentary oversight of the Commission’s day-to-day or professional operations, the party argues, is not permissible under the existing legal framework in the same way that Parliament cannot direct the judiciary, the Anti-Corruption Commission, or the Sierra Leone Audit Service. The position can be distilled simply: yes to reforms, but no to political interference in the Electoral Commission.
On the specific recommendations tabled by the Tripartite Committee, the SLPP singled out Points 4 and 5 as the provisions it formally endorses. On Point 4, the party expressed support for expanding the Tripartite Steering Committee to include other political parties, Paramount Chiefs, and civil society organisations a broadening of the process that the SLPP says would give any eventual reforms wider legitimacy and public ownership. On Point 5, the party backs proportional representation as the electoral model for future elections, as provided for under the Constitutional Amendment Bill 2025.
The response arrives at a moment of sustained political sensitivity. Sierra Leone’s Tripartite process born out of the contested aftermath of the 2023 general elections has always carried within it the risk of collapse, the kind of breakdown that happens not through dramatic confrontation but through incremental disagreement over the fine print. The SLPP’s invocation of constitutional supremacy over political negotiation is precisely the kind of fine print that will determine whether the process holds.
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The APC and the Moral Guarantors are yet to formally respond to the SLPP’s constitutional framing. What happens next in that exchange will say a great deal about how much room remains for genuine agreement and how much of what has been called a national unity process is, in practice, still a contest.
