APC SHOULD SELECT EITHER CHERICOCO OR A STRONG SOUTHEASTERNER AS RUNNING MATE – Somebody who will eat away some of the SLPP’s tribal votes .
By Kabs Kanu
IF APC will not go with Hon. Chernoh Bah , alais CHERICOCO, then let it be noted that we can’t have a Westerner or a Northerner as running mate . We need to penetrate the South East where tribal politics and tribal block voting always prevail. Chericoco can provide some counterbalance that will compensate for the loss of Southern votes. Fulahs are the third largest ethnic group in Sierra Leone.
People in the Southeast are so fixed in their loyalty to SLPP that if you give a dog the SLPP symbol, they will vote in tribal block for that dog. We do not have that kind of dynamics in the North. We are divided . So, that is why we need either the Fulah votes or to infiltrate the Southeast to chip away their votes . Unless we can ferret out some substantial Southeastern votes , winning will be hard . Votes from the North and West might not be enough.
SLPP do not have these daunting problems. They can go it all alone and still win, due to the fragmentation in the North. They can take substantial votes from us in the North. We are not assured of that in their strongholds.
APC will never make it by going it alone regionally . If we cannot have Chericoco, who is my first choice then we cannot bypass the Southeastern dynamics since we do not enjoy block voting in the North. We do so at our own peril. The names challenging CHERICOCO will not help us to win because they are Northern or Western.
We also need unshakable and unmovable 100 % Temne loyalty as the SLPP enjoy from Mendes. We condemn these dynamics as tribalistic but given the nature of our politics, they are worth discussing. In Bat Town, we must hang like a bat.
Politics in Sierra Leone, unfortunately, is ethnoregional . You cannot run away from it. It will be hypocritical to do so. Winning an election in Sierra Leone , therefore, is about having the right and the best regional and tribal balance. Nobody ever wins by going it all alone , ethnoregionally. Tribal and regional inclusion and tolerance are keys to victory in Sierra Leone . That is the way we met it; that is the way it is and we cannot change it. But a way to get around the problem is to practice tribal and regional inclusion. They are not only central to national integration and unification , but help parties to win elections.
In fact , I hate any system that is ethnoregionallly one -sided . Sierra Leone belongs to all of us and we cannot survive without incorporating other regions and tribes . We cannot deny the ethnoregional character of our national politics and by dint of that, we should make our system tribally and regionally balanced .
Therefore, if we are not having CHERICOCO again, let us have a strong Southeasterner
, probably a blue- blood Mende , as a running mate . APC is a national political party and this should not be a problem as leaving out Southeasterners has never been a problem.But CHERICOCO is my preferred candidate.
I like Chericoco and I support any initiative to have him return as running mate. He is young, brilliant, dynamic and has leadership qualities . If Chericoco is made running mate, I will support him again because of these qualities and also because the Fula votes are nationally widespread and very important to us. Fulahs are nomadic and live in all parts of Sierra Leone, including the Southeast. They are not concentrated in one region. This is where their strength lies. I will even support Chericoco as flagbearer and future President of Sierra Leone after Dr. SAMURA KAMARA, my man . I think it will serve our party best if Chericoco is our running mate. But I see some people kicking against it and pushing forward other candidates. Well, if that is the case, we hope those candidates are not Northerners or Westerners. A Northern Presidential candidate + a Northern or Western running mate = FAILURE. Demographic dynamics dictate these realities.
So if APC does not want CHERICOCO as running mate, then we should go in for a Southeasterner. Some of the names I am hearing will not help us win the elections.
I stand accused .
