By: Christian Conteh
The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) is working on formulating a policy that will insist that member states stick to presidential term limits as prescribed in their various constitutions. And where there are no constitutional provisions that encourage the country to introduce it through constitutional reforms. This is according to the head of the ECOWAS election observer mission to The Gambia.
Ernest Bai Koroma, the former president of Sierra Leone was speaking during a presentation of the ECOWAS mission’s preliminary findings in the just concluded Gambian Presidential Election
“We have to ensure that it becomes a policy of ECOWAS to insist on a term limit. I think term limits must be supported and issues of good governance are addressed at all times along the way. We should have a look at every president’s way of governance because these are the early warning signs that are not adhered to,” Koroma told journalists at a post-election press conference.
Interestingly Former President Koroma handed over the country’s mantle of leadership to the main opposition after Julius Maada Bio won the elections. The handing over came at a time when party faithful of the then governing All Peoples Congress Party trumpeted a third term bid for Koroma.
The former Sierra Leonean leader further disclosed that the issue of term limit has been discussed in ECOWAS meetings, even recently at the reviewing of its protocol on good governance and democracy.
“The position as at now is that where you have a term limit the countries must ensure that they adhere strictly to the provisions of the term limit and where you don’t have a term limit as it is the case with The Gambia, it is left with Gambians to review their constitution to consider implementing term limit,” Koroma said.
Koroma added that as a body, ECOWAS holds the view that the term limit gives the voting population a choice.
“To be fair, in the end if a president is lucky to serve two terms, I don’t see anything more you can offer beyond your two terms. I think it is time to bow out”.
“However, I think we have implications here; there are times when people want to stay beyond their term limits because of the lack of guarantees of life after the presidency but I believe we have had a lot of past presidents that engage in doing so many other things after office,” he said.
