Seven candidates vying for the top post in Sierra Leone’s government are heating up their campaign trails with only three days to the polling day.

The Sierra Leone electioneering, which started off with violence, is picking legitimate momentum as the seven candidates storm the length and breadth of the country on the campaign trail. The government has now put in place modalities to stop violence. According to the state owned radio, the SLBS, anyone found breaking the peace by using violence, would be put in detention till after the elections slated 11th August 2007.

The seven candidates, according to some political commentators, are all bent on becoming president of Sierra Leone. The real fight is said to be between three major contestants including Charles F. Margai of the People’s Movement for Democratic Change, Ernest Bai Koroma of the All Peoples Congress, and Solomon Berewa commonly known as Solo B, the ruling party’s presidential candidate. As the race heats up, the populace seem to underrate the remaining four candidates, including Dr. Andrew Jallow of the National Democratic Alliance, Dr. Kandeh Barba Conteh of the Peace and Liberation Party and Professor Abdul Khadi Karim of the United National Peoples Party. It is believed that they are less popular and if anything, they should be better off merging to form a coalition alliance against the other three big parties. Such coalition, it is widely speculated, could produce a formidable force to defeat the weakest of the three major parties.

According to Martin Juana, Vice president of the SLPP (Gambia branch), “If PMDC and APC should form a coalition against the ruling SLPP at any one time, they will fail woefully because the members of PMDC are merely a breakaway group from their parent party, SLPP. Their reason for leaving the SLPP, it is argued, is not based on love for APC; and some disgruntled APC members also joined the PMDC but are not against SLPP. These breakaway groups would all join the SLPP in the event of a second round to determine the winner.

Gbalia Kamara, a staunch APC supporter and a founding member of the APC Gambia branch, has reiterated that APC would win this time round because it is a good party. He said the first lady  comes from Kono and the running mate of the APC was also a Kono man who had poured a lot of dollars on the party. The Konos, he said would vote for the APC.

But observers and residents in that country fear for the increase in violence blamed on angry and desperate party militants. For now, the ultimate winner continues to be a big question mark.