20110301
reuters

FREETOWN (Reuters) - Sierra Leone's Supreme Court has banned the country's main opposition party from meeting to choose its presidential candidate, sparking accusations of government interference.

The Sierra Leone Peoples' Party (SLPP) had planned to hold a convention on Saturday to select a candidate to run next year against President Ernest Bai Koroma and the incumbent All Peoples' Congress (APC), which has held power since 2007.

The 2012 presidential election will take place a decade after the end of Sierra Leone's devastating civil war and is seen as a test of the West African country's ability to recover.

The court's decision, announced late on Monday, means it is now unclear when the SLPP will be able to choose their candidate and start campaigning.

"Such acts serve as a recipe for instability," Jacob Jusu Saffa, the SLPP's national secretary-general, told Reuters.

Saffa pointed to a 2005 ruling that the court does not have jurisdiction over the workings of political parties and said the injunction was politically motivated.

"The only thing that has changed (since the 2005 ruling) is that the APC are in government," he said.

Politics in Sierra Leone is drawn on ethnic and regional rather than ideological lines. The APC draws from the Temne people of the north, while the SLPP is rooted in the Mende of the south and east.