“I Will Vote What Is in My Heart”: Sierra Leone’s 2012 Elections and the Pliability of “Normative” Democracy

Abstract

(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.)November 17, 2012 was national election day in the West African country of Sierra Leone. My friend Musa and I walked down Lunsar Road, a main thoroughfare in the provincial capital of Makeni, speaking in hushed tones so that our conversation would not echo in the desolate streets. The normally bustling neighborhoods were silent and deserted. Stores were shuttered, the sidewalk was empty of its usual crowd of traders and children, and the road itself hosted only the occasional official election vehicle, speeding from one polling station to the next. The stillness was broken only by the occasional residents ambling along in twos and threes, wearing their biometric voter ID cards on red lanyards around their necks, the telltale sign of India ink-marking that they had voted-on their right index fingers. The new laws governing public conduct on election day banned commerce, organized public activity, and vehicle travel until the polling stations closed at 7 p.m. And so the voters, many of whom had been queuing at their respective stations since five in the morning, walked home in the silence, and waited.The overwhelming stillness and my concomitant sense of unease were interrupted briefly by a call of, Musa! How are you? from a woman walking across the street. Musa and his friend met in the middle of the empty road and greeted each other. She was making her way home from voting, and was beaming. She was not unsettled by the stark surroundings; in fact she reveled in them, remarking on how wonderful, how amazing the town looked. As they chatted, Musa and his friend smiled and laughed, gesturing intermittently to an empty trading stall or to a silent workshop. They congratulated one another on keeping the peace, both anticipating that, as a result of people upholding the drastic curtailment of everyday freedoms, the elections would be pronounced free and fair, with minimal grumbling about tampering or irregularities from the losing parties. Musa's friend noted that she was glad that visitors (gesturing to me) were here to see their in action. She hoped I was pleased.The exceptional nature of this ostensibly productive, successful democratic moment invites many questions about what normative looks like. As the 2012 elections were Sierra Leone's first self-organized election since the 1980s, they were considered a huge test of the country's (Doyle 2012). The civil war had ended in 2002, and in the intervening decade, the United Nations had organized or run every election. To create a perfect election, in the words of several citizens, parliament passed comprehensive election laws that imposed restrictive new limits on assembly, free speech, and movement. The new laws created designated campaign days, increased oversight for party registration and activity, and banned political speech, dress, and activity during polling, a day in which commercial activity in urban areas was also forbidden. The curtailments of everyday freedoms were roundly criticized by international election observers as inconsistent with the core tenets of and human rights (Carter Center 2012a, European Union 2012). However, every foreign observer mission declared the election free, fair, and transparent, noting that the country was consolidating its democracy (European Union 2012:7). Sierra Leoneans were also satisfied, as the election was legitimized by the international community, and also conformed with local historical emphases on public shows of unity. The ugly side of political negotiations were dissimulated into covert spheres (Ferme 1999), which was considered the proper place for potentially divisive arguing, even as Sierra Leoneans deem these practices conducive to corruption precisely because of their opacity (see Richards 1996: 19).Sierra Leonean lawmakers invited international observer missions precisely because these missions have the power to adjudicate the quality of a nation's election and, by extension, its democracy. …