SIERRA LEONE:The military declares the country peaceful enough for an election, writes Mary Fitzgerald, Foreign Affairs Correspondent in Sierra Leone
When the rebels had finished with Kigbai, all that was left was the tiny village mosque. Pocked with bullet holes, the mosque walls still bear chilling slogans scrawled by the guerrillas as they left. "We will fight until all Sierra Leone becomes forest," reads one, the jagged letters sloping downwards.
The mosque now stands at the centre of a village painstakingly rebuilt since Sierra Leone's civil war ended in 2002. Hundreds of thousands were killed, raped and mutilated in a conflict funded by the sale of illegally traded "blood diamonds".
The war dragged on for just over a decade, devastating the country's infrastructure, driving hundreds of thousands from their homes and gaining notoriety for its drugged-up child soldiers.
One of an archipelago of hamlets in the far east of the country, most of Kigbai's inhabitants fled the rebels' advance and lived out the war in a string of refugee camps. Some never made it back.
Those who did are determined to vote in today's elections, the first since the last international peacekeepers departed two years ago. It will also be the first time post-war elections are fully run by the Sierra Leoneans rather than the international community, and the first time since the war's end that power will be handed from one peacetime government to the next.
Gathered under the corrugated iron roof that shelters Kigbai's open-air meeting place, those eligible to vote are going through their final preparations for today's ballot. "You will all need to know what do to when voting time comes," says Mohammed Koroma, who works for a voter education project run by Christian Aid and funded by Irish Aid, the Government's overseas development arm.
Women in brightly coloured headwraps bounce babies on their laps, elderly men scratch their chins and the village chief nods behind mirrored sunglasses as volunteers act out a sequence showing how to cast a ballot.
One villager whispers that some of the young men listening attentively are former child combatants who fought with the rebels before being repatriated back into their community.
"We don't like identifying and pointing them out," he says. "People are trying to move on from the war."
The election has gripped the country, from remote corners such as Kigbai to the choked streets of Sierra Leone's capital Freetown. More than 90 per cent of the country's 2.8 million eligible voters have registered to vote in today's presidential and parliamentary elections. Almost half of those registered are women.
Posters urging people to vote crop up everywhere from isolated farmhouses in the farthest reaches of Sierra Leone to the back of trucks caught in Freetown's traffic. Some have dubbed it the "traffic light election" because the three leading presidential candidates have chosen green, red and orange as their party colours.
Most candidates are focusing on Sierra Leone's chronic poverty and what they can do about it. Last year the country ranked a miserable 176 out of 177 nations on the UN's human development index. The UN estimates that some 65 per cent of Sierra Leoneans are jobless, with unemployment as high as 80-90 per cent in some areas.
A poster for the governing Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP) candidate, vice-president Solomon Berewa, puts his case bluntly in the local Krio language: "Solo B - De Poor Man's Choice". Another poster reads: "You want betteh? Vote Solo B". Some voters are not convinced, pointing out that life has not improved much under Berewa's party. Complaints about poverty and corruption are a constant, as are gripes about the country's erratic electricity supply.
The youth vote is crucial, with 56 per cent of those registered to vote under 32 years of age. Sierra Leone's Truth and Reconciliation Commission has recommended that youth issues "be viewed as a national emergency" while opposition leaders have harangued the government for failing the country's young people, with the All People's Congress (APC) party stating: "The youth problem has become chronic with a potential for explosion".
The UN secretary general's report released in May concurred, saying overall poor living conditions along with "high rates of youth unemployment . . . remain key threats to the country's fragile stability."
Five years after the war, there is a lingering threat of unrest. The formation of a breakaway SLPP group led by Charles Margai, nephew of the country's first prime minister, led to clashes and house burning in some SLPP strongholds earlier this year. Observers fretted about outbreaks of violence that marked some campaigns but last week the military declared the country peaceful enough for elections.
"The security situation is relatively calm and peaceful and we look forward to an election that is peaceful, credible and violence-free," spokesman Brig- Gen Arthur Nelson-Williams said.
An International Crisis Group report published last month cautioned that violence could return if today's elections did not run smoothly.
Pointing out that many of the conditions that sparked Sierra Leone's civil war were still present, the study concluded that a lasting peace was possible only if this year's elections were transparent and the new government acted swiftly to tackle corruption and inequality. With youth unemployment rampant, there was no shortage of willing political agitators, the report warned.
"These elections are a lot more important than the other post- war elections," Lansana Gberie, author of the ICG report, said.
"Because these elections will be conducted purely by Sierra Leoneans, they will be proof of whether Sierra Leone has really moved to the post-conflict stage. It's not so much the outcome that is important this time, but seeing if the elections are conducted successfully in a fair way. It's a crucial test for the country."
The newly formed National Electoral Commission (NEC) is running Sierra Leone's elections for the first time and observers say it has performed well so far, particularly in encouraging such a high number of people to register. The Irish Government is among a group of six international donors contributing to the NEC and electoral reform projects in the country, providing €4 million since 2005.
However, the one thing NEC cannot do anything about is bad weather. Today's polls take place at the height of the rainy season which in West Africa means a downpour that can last for a day or a week. Sierra Leone's poor infrastructure can barely withstand the deluge - urban areas flood and rural roads become impassable rivers of mud, cutting off huge swathes of the countryside.
Opposition leaders and some civil society groups have criticised the election date, saying it could make it difficult for voters to reach polling stations. With heavy rains lashing most parts of the country yesterday, it seemed increasingly likely that would be the case.
Nevertheless, voters such as Sahr Alex Kotie, a teacher from the village of Lalaihun, close to the border with Guinea, were determined to make their voice heard. "Of course I will vote," he said. "These elections are important because while the war may have ended, we are not out of the darkness yet."