THE EFFECT OF ETHNICITY ON DEMOCRATIC CONSOLIDATION: EVIDENCE FROM THE PREFERENCE FOR PROPORTIONAL REPRESENTATION SYSTEM IN SIERRA LEONE

Abstract

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.