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Vol 42 No 5

Published 9th March 2001


Sierra Leone

The cost of Kabbah

Putting off elections for six months is delaying the evil day

That consummate survivor President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah has done it again. He has persuaded parliament, if not the voters, that his increasingly unpopular government should be given another six months in office because the war prevents the holding of free elections at the end of this month as the constitution stipulates. No one disputes that voting is impossible under current conditions but many question that the only option is another six months of President Kabbah, to be followed in all probability by another six months of President Kabbah, and so on. At that stage, Kabbah's most precious political asset - the shreds of legitimacy he has from winning the war-torn 1996 election - will have been spent.

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