Elections and Coups in Sierra Leone, 1967

Abstract

On St Patrick's Day 1967 Sierra Leone went to the polls to elect a new parliament. Four days later, on 21 March, Brigadier David Lansana, head of the Sierra Leone army, seized power. After two more days, on 23 March, Lansana was repudiated by a group of senior army officers; this second coup was followed by the creation of a National Reformation Council, including five army officers and two senior police officials, which was to take control of the government. Almost the last multi-party democracy in independent black Africa had come to an end, cancelling the first peaceful change of government through the ballot-box. Lansana's action was in some respects less defensible than Ian Smith's U.D.I. in Rhodesia. Smith acted against the presumed wishes of a majority of Rhodesians; Lansana acted against the majority wish which had just been expressed. Smith did not, within minutes of taking power, send troops to fire on protesting crowds in the streets of the capital.