Sierra Leone’s Constitutional Amendment: Why We Should Not Put the Cart Before the Horse
By Foday Lansana Suma
As Parliament battles over the proposed constitutional amendments, I believe the APC—and indeed every Sierra Leonean who cares about the credibility and stability of our democracy—must exercise caution.
We must not put the cart before the horse.
My position is simple: complete the 2026 Population and Housing Census, establish the population realities of the country, complete the consequential electoral and administrative boundary work, and only then make fundamental changes to the constitutional framework governing political representation.
This is not an argument against constitutional reform. It is an argument for getting the sequence right.
The 1991 Constitution already recognizes the importance of population in determining parliamentary representation. Section 38 provides that constituency boundaries should, as far as reasonably practicable, contain approximately equal populations, while allowing consideration of geography, communications, communities and traditional or administrative boundaries. It also provides for periodic constituency reviews and specifically recognizes the relevance of a population census to such reviews.
That raises a fundamental question: why should we permanently redesign the electoral system before we know what Sierra Leone’s new population distribution actually looks like?
The 2026 census should give us the demographic foundation upon which future representation is designed. Once the census is completed, if conducted with sincerity , we should know much more clearly how Sierra Leone’s population has shifted, which areas have grown, which have declined, and what that means for districts, constituencies and local government representation.
That information matters enormously.
Let us first establish the new political geography
One of the arguments I would make to the APC leadership is that we should not approach this debate purely from the perspective of which electoral system gives the APC an advantage.
The bigger question should be:
What electoral architecture will remain fair regardless of which party is in power?
I have heard arguments from some government supporters that the APC administration under President Ernest Bai Koroma created additional districts and constituencies in areas where the APC was traditionally strong, allegedly to manufacture parliamentary advantage.
I do not accept that explanation as sufficient.
The creation or reorganization of administrative units should primarily be assessed against population, access to government, administrative convenience, development needs and the historical distribution of communities—not simply through the lens of which political party eventually benefits electorally.
Likewise, investments in higher education and other institutions in the North should not automatically be characterized as political patronage simply because they occurred under an APC government.
If a previous administration corrected genuine geographical or developmental imbalances, that should be judged on the evidence, not on the electoral map that followed.
But precisely because boundaries and representation can have political consequences, we should be extremely careful about changing the electoral rules before the country’s demographic and administrative picture has settled.
The same argument applies to the SLPP
I also reject the argument that Sierra Leoneans should simply trust that a future government would never use the same tools available to previous governments to reshape political representation.
This is not necessarily about President Bio personally.
It is about designing institutions that do not depend on the goodwill of whoever occupies State House.
If the census subsequently demonstrates that some regions or districts require additional representation, then that process should happen transparently, according to objective criteria, through an independent and credible delimitation process.
The rules should apply equally to APC, SLPP and every other political party.
That is precisely why I believe we should first complete the census and consequential boundary work before locking ourselves into a new constitutional electoral model.
PR is not the problem; timing and safeguards are
Let me be clear: I am not opposed to Proportional Representation in principle.
In fact, PR can have important democratic advantages. It can make the distribution of parliamentary seats more closely reflect the votes received by political parties and can provide opportunities for political forces that may struggle to win individual constituencies.
But PR is not automatically synonymous with better democracy.
The Tripartite Committee’s Recommendation 78 is important here. It did not simply declare that Sierra Leone must permanently choose PR. It recommended a national dialogue on the choice between District Proportional Representation and First-Past-the-Post for Parliament and local councils. It also said that whichever system is chosen should protect minimum female representation and that the Electoral Commission should establish appropriate regulations.
That recommendation deserves to be taken seriously.
There is therefore a legitimate question about whether we are moving too quickly from a recommendation for national dialogue to constitutional entrenchment of a particular electoral system.
Indeed, the national consultation that followed Recommendation 78 itself discussed safeguards including electoral thresholds, accountability of representatives, political-party candidate selection, management of party lists, gender and diversity, and maintaining boundaries. It also considered a possible hybrid or open-list PR model.
Those safeguards are not peripheral issues. They are the heart of the debate.
PR does not automatically guarantee smaller parties seats
Another argument being made is that PR will automatically open Parliament to smaller parties.
That needs qualification.
Whether a smaller party wins parliamentary representation under PR depends heavily on the design of the system—including the electoral threshold, district magnitude, the size of the electoral districts and how seats are allocated.
A party receiving 3 or 4 percent of the national vote does not automatically obtain a parliamentary seat simply because the country uses PR.
This is why we need to debate the actual model rather than merely debating the label “PR.”
And FPTP is not a guarantee of representation either
At the same time, I would not argue that First-Past-the-Post is inherently superior.
FPTP has its own weaknesses. A party can receive substantial votes nationally but win relatively few seats if those votes are spread across constituencies without being concentrated enough to produce victories.
PR addresses some of those problems, but it can create other questions—particularly around the relationship between voters and individual representatives, the power of political parties over candidate lists, and the accountability of MPs to specific communities.
That brings me to what I consider the most important democratic question:
Who ultimately controls the representative—the voter or the political party?
Under a party-list system, the design of the list can give political parties considerable influence over who enters Parliament. That is not necessarily undemocratic, but it means that the rules governing candidate selection, open versus closed lists, accountability and removal must be carefully designed.
The citizen must not simply exchange one form of weak representation for another.
We should learn from the 2023 experience
There is also an important historical fact that should not be lost in this debate.
Sierra Leone already used District Block Proportional Representation for the 2023 parliamentary and local elections. The Electoral Commission explained at the time that Section 38A of the Constitution allowed district block representation where established constituencies were not available, and the 2023 elections were conducted under that system.
So the country is not debating PR in a vacuum.
We have an opportunity to examine the 2023 experience carefully: What worked? What did not? How did voters relate to candidates? How were party lists constructed? How accountable were elected representatives? What happened to smaller parties? And what lessons should be incorporated into any permanent electoral model?
Those questions deserve evidence, not political slogans.
This is why I believe the APC should advocate patience
If I were leading the APC at this particular moment, I would argue for a clear sequence:
First, complete the 2026 census
Second, publish and independently scrutinize the population results.
Third, undertake the necessary delimitation and administrative boundary processes transparently and independently.
Fourth, resolve the outstanding questions concerning districts, constituencies and the proposed restructuring of Freetown and other local government arrangements.
Fifth, fully work through the relevant Tripartite Agreement recommendations and conduct the promised national dialogue on the electoral system.
Only then should we make permanent constitutional choices about the future structure of parliamentary representation.
That approach does not mean rejecting constitutional reform.
It means insisting that constitutional reform should be based on current facts rather than assumptions about where the population, districts or political parties will stand.
A constitution should not be designed to favour APC.
It should not be designed to favour SLPP.
It should not be designed to favour the smaller parties.
It should be designed to survive all of them.
Calling for this sequencing is therefore not obstructionism. It is a call for institutional prudence.
The census will give us the facts.
Delimitation will give us the new political geography.
National dialogue will give citizens the opportunity to shape the electoral system.
And constitutional reform should come after those things—not before them.
We must not put the horse behind the cart.
Sierra Leone deserves an electoral system designed for the next generation, not one hurried into the Constitution because today’s political circumstances make it convenient for one side or another.
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