ENTIDADES ADMINISTRADORAS DE PLANES DE BENEFICIOS (EAPB) Y LAS AUDITORAS DE ESTA ENTIDADES

In 1967, national elections were held with APC as the winner. However, political turmoil including a military coup had the effects that it was only by 1968 that the APC could start engaging its work as the de jure and de facto government in power (Fischer (1967). For the purpose of this thesis, rather than going into a detailed account of these political events and military coups31, it is particularly relevant to explore the role of the Paramount Chiefs in the national elections as well as in relation to the APC governments’ subsequent One Party Constitution.

The Dowe-Edwin Commission and the National Reformation Council

As a result of the political and military turmoil surrounding the national elections two commissions were established, which investigated the legality of declaring the APC as the winning party of the elections and instating Siaka Stevens as Prime Minister. These commissions were: The Dove-Edwin Commission and the National Reformation

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Another indication of the north-south divide is one of Siaka Steven’s first actions when he became Prime Minister. The rail-way line running through the south-eastern parts of Sierra Leone, which constituted the dominant infrastructural source of southern development (See map in Figure 5) was closed down by Siaka Stevens. Thus, in order to travel from Freetown to e.g. Kono traders had to move through the heartlands of APC power base in the North, and thereby strengthening Temne traders’ influence. (Keen 2005: 15)

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For a detailed account of the events during the 1967 elections, see Allen (1968), Bantu (1993), and Fischer (1967).

69 Councils White Paper. The Dowe-Edwin Commission stressed that the conduct of the elections had been in accordance with the 1961 Constitution of Sierra Leone and approved the election results. The National Reformation Council, however, maintained that the conduct of the elections was faulty, and the real winner was in fact the SLPP. The central issue these commissions refer to in the advancement of their positions is whether it was in accordance with the Sierra Leone Constitution, that the Paramount Chieftaincy elections for the House of Representatives had not been finalized before the APC was announced as the new government. As the discussion below will indicates, these commissions show the importance and influential position of Paramount Chiefs within the framework of national and formal politics and that the chiefs have strong leanings towards the SLPP making it difficult for the APC to win the elections through constitutional means.

As is evident from several paragraphs32 in the Dove-Edwin Commission, it clearly sides with the APC stating that it was right to appoint Stevens before the election of the Paramount Chiefs (Extracts presented in Daramy 1999). The central argument of the Dove-Edwin Commission is that Paramount Chiefs should follow the line of the Government in power and not side with a political party. Said in other words, the Paramount Chiefs are not allowed to vote in the House of Representatives on which party should be elected as the government.

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104. In not waiting for the result of the Paramount Chiefs elections before acting under his powers the Governor-General, Speaker Sir Henry, was manifestly right.

108. We think the Governor-General was right. The result of the Paramount Chiefs Elections would not have helped him at all in coming to his decision. The most those Elections would reveal is that twelve Paramount Chiefs had been elected, each for his own District and nothing to do with the Parties.

111. We repeat, no Paramount Chief could change his place as a representative of his District to say he is a Paramount Chief S.L.P.P Member or A.P.C. He cannot be any more than an Independent with leanings towards the Government in power.

70 The National Reformation Council appears to be of a different opinion as several extracts are evidence of (National Reformation Council; Extracts presented in Daramy 1999: 58-59): As these extracts33 show, in contrast to the Dove-Edwin Commission, the National Reformation Council argues that the election of Siaka Stevens was faulty, since the Paramount Chiefs’ Election had not been finalized before his appointment. As the National Reformation Council’s White Paper in paragraph 29 (See footnote below), it should be possible for the Paramount Chiefs to support the party of their choice since the Constitution of Sierra Leone manifests the people’s freedom of association. Thus, by not allowing the Paramount Chief election to be finalized before announcing APC as the winner it is the view of the National Reformation Council that this decision was based on an unsound foundation, since the voices of the Paramount Chiefs were not heard.

Implicit in these arguments, it is clearly expected that the Paramount Chiefs would have voted for the SLPP. Prior to the official declaration of the election results several of the Paramount Chiefs running to be elected had signed documents stating that if they became elected they would only support an SLPP government (Allen 1968: 20).

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27. The National Reformation Council does not agree with the conclusions reached by the commission as regards the position of Paramount Chiefs in the House of Representatives. It is the view of the National Reformation Council that, since the House of Representatives consists of Ordinary as well as Paramount Chief Members, no House of Representatives can be legally constituted before the elections of both categories of Members have been duly concluded in accordance with section 30 of the constitution.

29. Also, although as a matter of practice and expediency, Paramount Chief Members may be expected to throw their lot in with the party in power, it is legally possible, having regard to the entrenched provisions of the Constitution with regard to freedom of association, for such members to exercise their right to support any political party of their choice.

35. Regrettably, the Governor-General in appointing the Prime Minister on the 21st day of March, 1967, never took notice of a single Paramount Chief Member… In this respect the National Reformation Council cannot accept this part of the Report.

71 From this perspective, it appears to have been a necessity for the APC to exclude the Paramount Chiefs from the voting puzzle in order to size power. This is also evident from the House of Representative Debates, where the representation of Paramount Chiefs had been a heated topic for years. As Siaka Stevens stressed in a debate taking Place in the House of Representatives34 in 1962, the position of the Paramount Chiefs in the House of Representatives eschews the balance of votes. This is due to the fact that even though the Paramount Chiefs ought to be independent, or so to say back- benchers, they are dependent on the “good-will” of both the party in power and the Ministry of Internal Affairs why they will always vote in favor of the government party, the SLPP.

APC One-Party Constitution

As the previous analysis has shown, the APC party’s power base rested on anti-chiefs sentiments and had long promulgated that the role of the chiefs in the House of Representatives was undemocratic and should be changed. However, an interesting twist in APC’s stand towards the chiefs once in power manifests the centrality of the Chiefs in the formal sphere of politics. Once in power, the APC took several measures to insure the loyalty of the chiefs in the House of Representatives. In the APC government’s One-Party Constitution No. 12 implemented in 1978, it was stated that for the Paramount Chief to be elected for Parliament, they should be a member of the APC – the APC being the only recognized political party35. This not only contradicts the criticism Siaka Stevens himself presented in the House of Representatives in 1962 it

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“If I was a Paramount Chief and I knew that Paramount Chiefs were under the Ministry of Internal Affairs I would be very careful not to do anything that would be prejudicial to the Ministry of Internal Affairs. I can see that on the Government side you have twenty-four Ministers including junior Ministers. Out of a total of sixty- four Members of Parliament there are about nineteen backbenchers. In other words, there are more officers on that side than there are men. In ordinary democratic institutions you should have more men than officers. It will be very difficult sometimes for Members to exercise the right which they have as vigorously as they ought to do”. (The Emergency Bill 13th of January, 1962: 532-533)

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72 also collides with paragraph 111 of the Dove-Edwin Commission (presented in footnote 30 above) which was the justifying source of APC’s rise to government power.

Thus, once in power the APC appeared to take a quite different stand towards the chiefs than when they were in opposition. As will be substantiated in more detail below, the APC opted for a strategy of seizing control over the chiefs based on forceful and coercive means36.