THE SLPP’S CONSTITUTIONAL TEST

THE SLPP’S CONSTITUTIONAL TEST

By Mahmud Tim Kargbo

Friday, 2 October 2026

A dispute over Musa Tarawally’s SLPP membership has opened a larger question: if he was not constitutionally qualified to participate in the National Delegates Conference, on what basis was he allowed to vote in the very process that produced the Party’s current leadership? The issue is therefore not confined to Tarawally’s present status. It reaches back to the decisions, records and authorities that enabled his participation. If those decisions were valid when made, the Party must explain what has since changed. If they were not, the constitutional questions cannot stop with one individual.

The SLPP Constitution establishes the National Delegates Conference as the Party’s “supreme governing and policy-making body” and assigns it responsibility for the general direction and control of the Party. Article 4(B)(9) specifically provides for 50 former Members of Parliament who have consistently remained loyal and financially committed to the Party, nominated by their Association and approved by the National Secretariat. The record presented in this controversy is that Tarawally, a former SLPP MP, appeared on the list of former MPs who participated in the Conference and voted as a delegate. That establishes the central factual point for the inquiry. What remains to be established is the constitutional basis on which he was included, nominated and approved.

Article 4 makes the consequences of delegate status clear. The Conference elects National Officers every three years, while its election guidelines require Conference elections to be conducted by secret ballot and simple majority. Article 5 makes the NEC the Party’s principal executive, administrative and national monitoring organ and expressly gives it power to appoint an elections management team for elections at the Party Conference. The constitutional record therefore connects delegate composition, election management and the election of national officers within one institutional framework.

That makes the chronology important. Tarawally’s participation was not merely an assertion about membership made after the event. He was present and participated in the Conference as a delegate. The unanswered question is whether the Party’s records show that his status was checked and approved in accordance with Article 4(B)(9), and, if so, by which authorised organ. The Constitution also assigns the National Secretariat a central documentary role. Article 7 provides that the Secretariat is the main repository of Party documentation and facilitates the work of the Elections Management Board. The relevant records should therefore include the membership record, the former MPs’ nomination, the Secretariat’s approval, the final delegate list and the documentation governing the Conference election.

The membership provisions provide another part of the evidence. Article 2 states that a member ceases to be one by declaring that intention in writing to the National Secretary General, with a copy to the National Chairman. It also states that a member who joins or publicly declares an intention to join another party shall be deemed to have left the Party and shall be expelled. A former member seeking readmission may return only as an ordinary member, with eligibility for any Party position determined by the National Secretariat. These provisions establish the rules. They do not, however, establish from the Constitution alone what happened in Tarawally’s particular case. That requires the underlying membership and administrative records.

This is where the controversy reaches beyond Tarawally himself. If Tarawally was not qualified to participate as an SLPP delegate, what does that say about the previous Executive that organised and conducted the National Delegates Conference election that brought the current Executive into office? Was his participation recognised, approved or accredited under the Party’s Constitution, and if so, by which organ? If the current Executive now disputes the basis of that participation, what did the previous Executive know, what did it approve, and on what constitutional basis did it conduct an election in which Tarawally participated? These are questions about the institutional chain behind the election, not a conclusion that the current Executive is thereby invalid.

The September 2026 correspondence introduces a separate evidential question. National Chairman Batilo Songa stated that the SLPP contacted the Citizens Democratic Party to verify Tarawally’s membership and relied on a CDP response stating that he remained a member of that party. Tarawally disputes that position and maintains that he left the CDP in 2018 before returning to the SLPP. Those are competing accounts. The constitutional question is narrower: which SLPP organ authorised the inquiry, under what provision or approved Party procedure was it undertaken, and how was the information subsequently used?

The Constitution distributes administrative authority among identifiable offices. Article 6 establishes the National Officers, including the National Chairman, National Secretary General and National Public Relations Officer, while Article 7 places the National Party Administration under the overall direction of the Chairman and management of the Secretary General. The Secretariat is also the Party’s main repository of documentation. The point is not to assume that an office lacked authority. It is to identify the precise constitutional or regulatory provision under which the particular action was taken.

The same distinction applies to the 19 September public notice issued by National Publicity Secretary Moses Sellu Mambu. The Constitution gives the National Public Relations Officer responsibility for communications and public statements and expressly requires that officer to consult the National Secretariat before reacting, informing or making a public statement on an issue of national importance. Article 18 also restricts unauthorised use of the Party’s name and logo in publications. The evidence therefore establishes that communications authority is constitutionally structured. What remains unanswered is whether the particular notice was issued within that structure and on the authority of a decision already taken by the appropriate Party organ.

There is also a formal disciplinary framework. Article 19 establishes the National Disciplinary Committee, while Article 20 requires the National Secretariat to develop the Disciplinary Code, General Administrative Procedures and Election Rules and Regulations for NEC approval. Those rules and operational manuals must not be inconsistent with the Constitution. Article 2 separately identifies circumstances in which membership may cease or expulsion may follow. The relevant question is therefore not whether a disciplinary label can be attached to the dispute, but which constitutional provision was relied upon, which organ acted, and what approved procedure governed that action.

The wider legal framework reinforces the importance of those questions without resolving the membership dispute itself. Article 23 of the SLPP Constitution recognises existing State laws and requires them to be read with the Party Constitution. Section 35(2) of the Constitution of Sierra Leone provides that the internal organisation of a political party shall conform to democratic principles. The Political Parties Regulation Commission has also previously referred, in the context of the SLPP National Delegate Conference, to the SLPP Constitution, the Party’s election rules, the Constitution of Sierra Leone and the Political Parties Act, while urging concerns to be channelled through the appropriate authorities.

The evidence, then, is relatively clear about the institutional architecture. The Constitution defines who may comprise the National Delegates Conference; it assigns the National Secretariat a role in approving specified delegates and maintaining Party records; it gives the NEC responsibility for aspects of election administration; and it establishes procedures governing membership, discipline and Party communications. What the available record does not yet establish is whether every relevant requirement was satisfied in Tarawally’s case, whether the previous Executive or another authorised organ verified those requirements before the Conference, and what constitutional authority supported the subsequent external inquiry into his membership.

Those unanswered questions should not be settled by political rhetoric. They should be settled by the Constitution, membership records, nomination records, National Secretariat approvals, delegate lists, election records and the Rules and Regulations governing the Conference. If those documents form a coherent chain, the Party can explain its position with institutional authority. If they reveal a contradiction, that contradiction deserves examination because the Conference that produced the current leadership was governed by the same constitutional framework now being invoked.

An institution demonstrates the strength of its authority not merely by asserting who belongs within it, but by being able to account for the records and decisions through which that authority was constituted.