Optimism was high last September when President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud took office and appointed a cabinet led by Abdi Farah Shirdon ‘Said’ (AC Vol 53 No 22 Not yet spring in Mogadishu). The early promise has faded however and the expectations of both S
10th Jan 2013

President Ernest Bai Koroma avoided a potentially contentious second-round in the presidential poll by defeating Julius Maada Bio outright on 17 November. It was announced on 23 November that President Koroma had won 58.7% of the vote. Bio polled just 37.
30th Nov 2012

Ahead of the 17 November elections the country is starkly split between the two main parties the governing All People’s Congress and the Sierra Leone People’s Party. These are the third elections since the end of the brutal civil war that left 75 000 pe
16th Nov 2012

The youth of Freetown helped to swing victory for Ernest Bai Koroma in 2007 runs the conventional wisdom. Overwhelming support in the capital was decisive in convincing even the defeated Sierra Leone People’s Party leadership that it was futile to protes
16th Nov 2012

President Ernest Bai Koroma has decided to keep his Vice-President Samuel Sam-Sumana on the governing All People’s Congress ticket in the 17 November general elections. Koroma spent most of September investigating alternative running mates without succe
5th Oct 2012

A major electoral controversy came to an end in mid-September when President Ernest Bai Koroma reversed the decision of the National Electoral Commission Chairwoman Christiana Thorpe to raise massively the fees for candidates for office. On 31 July she
5th Oct 2012

China International Fund a Hong Kong-based outfit which works closely with Beijing’s state corporations will become one of the Freetown government’s most privileged business partners following the signing in September of mining building and land-lease
2nd Oct 2012

The United Nations Mission in Liberia should serve another year according to its latest progress report. It is cautiously optimistic in general but is more forthcoming in describing its frustration with the government’s performance. After more than a dec
7th Sep 2012

United States businessmen are accusing Vice-President Samuel Sam-Sumana of diverting commercial investments worth hundreds of thousands of dollars into campaign funds for the All People’s Congress (APC) in the 2007 elections. If the businessmen are proved
24th Aug 2012

Freetown's pre-election politics have been so fractious that diplomats including United Nations representatives in the country fear that it would take a miracle for the country to avoid a relapse into large-scale violence during or after the polls in No
3rd Aug 2012