Browsing by Author "Lamina, Saa Emerson"

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    THE EFFECT OF ETHNICITY ON DEMOCRATIC CONSOLIDATION: EVIDENCE FROM THE PREFERENCE FOR PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION SYSTEM IN SIERRA LEONE
    (Open Access Publishing Group, 2026-09-24) Lamina, Saa Emerson
    Ethnicity has been considered a factor that undermines political reforms in Africa, as well as the acceptance or preference for political reforms initiated by a ruling party, despite the need for democratic consolidation, which is a public good, in many cases. The study therefore investigates whether the preference for democratic consolidation implemented through proportional representation, like the reform of 2022 in Sierra Leone, which was the adoption of proportional representation, with implementation in the 2023 election, is driven by ethnic considerations or not. A survey of respondents across all district headquarters towns was conducted, and both Pearson’s Chi-squared, with its associated Cramer’s V statistic and the Probit model of preference for proportional representation were employed. The results show that the preference for Sierra Leone’s proportional representation is strongly linked to ethnicity, suggesting ethnicity undermines democratic consolidation in Sierra Leone. Based on this result, that ethnicity undermines democratic consolidation in Sierra Leone, it is important that the Electoral Commission for Sierra Leone and the civic education institutions jointly strengthen efforts to explain in accessible languages how PR and the first-past-the-post translate votes into seats to ensure that the citizens do not evaluate electoral systems through their perceived consequences for their communities. It is also useful for Sierra Leone to employ policies that would encourage political parties to develop national instead of predominant ethnic support bases and strongly promote measures that build district or regional inclusive party platforms.
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    THE EFFECT OF EXPECTED WOMEN'S PARTICIPATION IN LEGISLATIVE GOVERNANCE ON PUBLIC SUPPORT FOR PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION IN SIERRA LEONE: A PROBIT MODEL EVIDENCE
    (Open Access Publishing Group, 2026-07-17) Lamina, Saa Emerson
    The study investigates whether support for the proportional representation system of legislative governance in Sierra Leone is linked to an expected increase in women's participation in legislative governance. A Probit model of proportional representation support is estimated using a national survey dataset from all five regions in Sierra Leone, with all 16 districts covered. The results show that among those who support a proportional representation system of parliament, increased women's representation in parliament as a reason is 13.9 percentage points higher than otherwise. In addition, the probability of a respondent supporting proportional representation based on the expected increase in women's participation is 60.7% and is significant at the 1% level. Hence, there are about 39.3% of the sample that do not support PR in spite of its increase in female participation in legislative governance in Sierra Leone. The actual proportion supporting PR based on women's participation in governance is found to be 60.86%, implying that it captures the data well. In addition, overall, the proportion of the sample that supports PR. is 59.0%. Hence, enforcement of the Gender Equality Women Empowerment (GEWE) Act by the Political Party Regulation Commission (PPRC) and the Electoral Commission for Sierra Leone is very critical for the enhancement and sustainability of the PR system adopted in Sierra Leone in 2022, which is a tool for inclusive developments in all districts across Sierra Leone, including strengthening maternal and child healthcare, girls’ education and enforcement of gender-based violence laws.