Doubting the Yumkella Crowd

My political experience in Sierra Leone has taught me the lesson that many political crowds are not genuine. A politician will make a big mistake to trust hundred percent the crowd that hail him or her before the ballots are cast; Yumkella (in photo) must not be carried away by the jubilant crowd that was following and hailing him.

When the main opposition Serra Leone Peoples Party (SLPP) rallied in Freetown during the past 2012 elections, the mammoth crowd that poured on the streets painted almost the whole city green but when Christiana Thorpe announced the shocking results, almost the whole city was painted red.

Many people crowd the rallies not because they are genuinely supporting the party or candidate, but because of several other reasons; some go there to steal, others go there because they have been hired with few sachets of concentrated Pegapak gin, few thousand Leones and a new t-shirt. There are those who go to cause chaos.

This is a country where it is not uncommon to see the same group of people rallying for various parties and candidates; some people use the rallies as a political harvest time as most of the rallies go along with wining and dining.

So, Yumkella must not take the crowd as a sign of popularity and possible victory, if he does, he will end up picking the pieces of his shattered dreams. Berewa got the shock of his life when the Christiana Thorpe announced the 2007 results and Bio got a worse shock in 2012.

In Sierra Leone politics particularly, you may have all the support but if you are not vigilant enough to prevent electoral fraud, your support may become meaningless at the end. You will be busy galvanizing the crowds with brilliant speeches and a moon shine of promises while the other person will be busy gathering money to bribe the decision makers and buy the elections.

Yumkella must not wholly and solely rely on the crowd for victory but must also apply some other political game tricks.

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