The Legacy of a Revolution That Never Happened: the Post-War Politics of Former Rebel Party

Government and Opposition (2019), 1–15 doi:10.1017/gov.2019.23 ARTICLE The Legacy of a Revolution that Never Happened: The Post-War Politics of Former Rebel Party RUFP in Sierra Leone 7 201364 6244 Mimmi Söderberg Kovacs* Mimmi Söderberg Kovacs, Folke Bernadotte Academy (FBA), Sweden *Corresponding author. Email: [email protected] (Received 6 March 2018; revised 3 June 2019; accepted 26 June 2019) Abstract The former rebel party Revolutionary United Front Party (RUFP) in Sierra Leone has struggled with a discredited wartime reputation and electoral defeats throughout the post-war period. In spite of this, the party has remained loyal to its wartime revolutionary ideas, symbols and political rhetoric. Why is this the case? In this article, I argue that the answer lies in the premises of party politics in war-torn states and new democracies on the African continent. In a political landscape where brokerage is power, retaining wartime C194274,01364,445C40D00140 identities can sometimes serve as a valuable source of (potential) patronage. With few other options for access to resources and opportunities, the core of the party membership has clung to its past as a means to both rally electoral support among the marginalized ex- combatant community and to get access to the long-awaited funds that were promised to them in the peace negotiations. .00 Keywords: rebel group; political party; post-war; RUFP; Sierra Leone It is the day after the first round of the general elections in Sierra Leone on 7 March 2018 at the party offices of the Revolutionary United Front Party (RUFP) just off a small dirt road in the eastern outskirts of the capital, Freetown. Inside the two-storey yellow-and-green building fronting the party flag with its characteristic lion, the general secretary and the acting chairman of the RUFP – both former body- /00/D44114: guards to the long-deceased former rebel leader Foday Sankoh – harbour very limited expectations for the election outcome – realistically as it would eventually turn out. Yet they are already planning for the next general elections. Pointing to the party sym- bol, they clarify that the lion is a wild animal with patience; their day will eventually come. Meanwhile, the party’s political message remains firmly in place: ‘We are a revolutionary party, we cannot be compromised. Revolution means change, we are striving for changes. Mind you, we are a former army, and we are against the system. We are those who stayed, when others disappeared.’1 7 201364 624 The RUFP made its entry into peaceful politics in the first post-war elections in 2002. The Lomé peace agreement, which was signed by the warring parties in 1999, © The Author 2019. Published by Government and Opposition Limited and Cambridge University Press 73 6 6D 03435 2 Mimmi Söderberg Kovacs included generous provisions for the former armed group’s transformation to a political party. But the party has never been able to make itself relevant to the post-war electorate. So far, the RUFP has consistently been defeated at the polls in every election in which it has participated and has failed to gain a single seat in parliament. Yet, the political ideas, rhetoric and symbols of the party remain basically the same every time it returns to the electoral arena. The March 2018 general elections were the fourth time that the RUFP ran on essentially the same political platform, firmly rooted in its wartime revolutionary ideology. A proposal by the chairman of the 7 201364 6244 party to enter into a strategic electoral coalition with other small parties and to support a single presidential candidate was fiercely rejected by the great majority of the party membership, who considered it an unacceptable compromise with the party’s revolutionary agenda (Medium 2018). The RUFP eventually lost miserably at the polls with presidential candidate Gbandi Jemba Ngobeh, a war veteran with limited political experience, who during the electoral campaign kept referring to the continuity between the political ideas of the armed movement the RUF and the political party RUFP (Concord Times 2018). How can we explain this puzzling refusal by the party to abandon the legacy of a discredited revolution that never happened in the face of persistent electoral failure? In spite of a growing literature on rebel-to-party transformations (e.g. Deonandan et al. 2007; Dudouet 2009; Ishiyama 2016; Manning 2008; Sindre and Söderström 2016), we do not yet know why some formerly armed actors turned political parties remain loyal to their wartime ideas in the post-war period while others do not. C194274,01364,445C40D00140 Devon Curtis and Gyda Sindre (2019) have asked what happens to former armed movements’ wartime ideas after the end of conflict, and why some groups maintain their ideas and identities whereas others change. This article attempts to contribute to this debate through a case study of the RUFP in Sierra Leone and its surprising case of post-war continuity in the face of what appear to be strong incentives for change. In this article, I argue that in order to understand why the .00 RUFP clings to its past, we need to consider the basic premises of party politics in many war-torn states and new democracies on the African continent. Opposition politics is rarely about formulating alternative policy options to present to the electorate. According to Anders Themnér (2015), the primary objective of electoral politics is to retain or attain a position of brokerage. In a political landscape where social networks are a critical source of power there are rational and strategic reasons for former warlords to attempt to retain their wartime networks if they believe this gives them leverage in the struggle for patronage. Because it /00/D44114: was those former RUF combatants with limited prospects for post-war reintegra- tion elsewhere who came to make up the core of the party membership, they remain dependent on reinforcing their former rebel identity to retain the hope of one day getting access to the resources and opportunities that were promised to them in the peace negotiations. This article begins by presenting the analytical framework which guides the empirical analysis. This is followed by a short note on methodology. Next, the empirical analysis is mapped out in three chronologically structured sections: 7 201364 624 the war years, the transition and the post-war period. In the conclusion, the case study findings are explored in light of the wider implications for our understanding of rebel-to-party transformations in war-to-democracy transitions. 73 6 6D 03435 Government and Opposition 3 Former rebel parties in post-war politics: previous research About one-third of all non-state armed groups who sign peace agreements in civil war peace processes subsequently establish themselves as political parties (Söderberg Kovacs and Hatz 2016). But their peacetime performances have varied considerably. This puzzle has been the focus of a growing research debate, where some contributions have focused on the post-war electoral performance of former rebel parties (e.g. Allison 2006, 2010; Manning and Smith 2016), their internal party developments (e.g. Ishiyama and Batta 2011; Sindre 2016a, 2016b) or patterns 7 201364 6244 of candidate recruitment (e.g. Ishiyama and Marshall 2015). Others have studied the effects of rebel-to-party transformation on governance performance (e.g. Lyons 2015, 2016; Söderberg Kovacs 2008), prospects for enduring peace (e.g. Marshall and Ishiyama 2016) and policy shifts by former rebel parties (Ishiyama and Marshall 2017). In this strand of literature, three main explanations for why and when former rebel parties carry out post-war reforms to their organization and identity have been suggested. First, a number of studies point to the relevance of the party’s wartime origins. It has been suggested that armed groups who emerged as political parties to begin with, or had political wings during the war, should be less compelled to carry out changes to their party image after the war (Ishiyama and Marshall 2017; Manning and Smith 2016). In addition, groups that mobilized support based on a particular regional, ethnic or religious identity or common ideology should be less likely to change the basis for their political appeal in the post-war period, as this C194274,01364,445C40D00140 would risk alienating the parties’ core constituency (Ishiyama and Marshall 2017: 366–367; Sindre 2016a: 198). Second, it has been argued that the circumstances regarding the ending of the war matter, with rebel victors being much less likely to carry out major changes compared to those who enter politics on the basis of a negotiated settlement due to the lack of .00 post-war electoral competition (e.g. Allison 2006, 2010; Ishiyama and Marshall 2017: 367; Lyons 2015, 2016). However, at the same time, the terms of the settlement may provide non-state armed actors with institutional guarantees for political influence and organizational survival which could diminish their incentives for party image reforms (Matanock 2017; Söderberg Kovacs and Hatz 2016). But peace agreement signatories may also get access to external support and resources which could increase opportunities for costly reforms (Ishiyama and Marshall 2017: 367). Third, a number of conditions pertaining to the post-war political and electoral landscape have been suggested as important for explaining post-war reforms by for- /00/D44114: mer rebel parties. The most important is poor electoral performance (Ishiyama and Marshall 2017: 366). More competitive electoral environments place higher demands on parties to identify and invest in new strategies and tactics to win elections (Manning and Smith 2019). Carrie Manning (2004: 59) also argues that whether a former rebel party successfully adapts to post-war politics or not depends on whether the major cleavages, grievances and issues that shaped the support for the rebels during the war are still relevant and salient after the peace agreement is signed.

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