First Warburg Lecture of the Year-Sept. 27th @ 5pm in LKP
Filed under Academics
Posted by Web Team, September 25, 2007
View all posts for September 2007
The Department of Political Science/International Relations, the Warburg Program and the POLS/IR Liaison presents:
The People’s Voice: The Struggle for Democracy in Sierra Leone
A lecture by our new Warburg Professor, Ambassador Thomas N. Hull
September 27, 2007
5:00-6:00pm
Simmons College
Linda K. Paresky Conference Center, Reception to follow
Sierra Leone’s August 11 presidential election produced a stunning upset with an opposition party receiving a plurality of the votes over the governing incumbents, a rarity in Africa. With neither party receiving the necessary 55% for victory due to the impact of a maverick third party, a constitutionally mandated runoff election appears likely in early September with the final outcome not being known until later in the month. The voting process was remarkably transparent, but will the will of the people be respected or will the process be manipulated or even aborted by those who find losing an election to be an inconvenient aspect of democracy? What is the potential for the election to destabilize this country whose recent civil war produced the notorious boy soldiers and blood diamonds? An insider’s analysis of this story, which is still being written, will be presented by the recently returned American Ambassador to Sierra Leone along with concluding comment on the wider implications of this event for democratization in Africa.
