Sierra Leone’s presidential and parliamentary elections are scheduled for May 14th. The candidate for the Revolutionary United Front Party is Alimame Paulo Bangura, a former political scientist with the University of Sierra Leone. He’s held several positions in the government, including ambassador to the Organization of African Unity in 1993; he’s also served as the country’s permanent representative to the United Nations.
Mr. Bangura says he believes the main issues on voters’ minds is peace. And he says voters will turn to the RUF party and its offer of healing as an alternative to what he calls the vengefulness of President Ahmed Tejan Kabba, who he says may try to open old political wounds. Mr. Bangura says among those wounds might be the reported terror and atrocities committed by the RUF during the civil war, such as the amputations of limbs of civilians under their rule. He disagrees with those who say that if elected to office he would work for immunity for those named for trial under a special UN tribunal investigating the wartime atrocities.