Tallying of votes from Sierra Leone’s general elections have started after the counting in the polling stations . Elections officers are adding up counted ballots from each polling unit at the regional level, in Freetown , Bo, Kenema, Makeni and Port Loko, according to the Elections Commission of Sierra Leone ( ECSL).
However, the opposition All People’s Congress ( APC) is very bitter about the process. The APC’s presidential candidate Dr. Samura Kamara, has complained during a statement that the electoral commission was making it “impossible for us and other political parties to compare, reconcile and verify” tallying.
REUTERS reports that “The party has for weeks accused the electoral commission of bias in favour of the governing party, raising speculation that it is laying the groundwork for a court challenge of the results -– a tactic both parties have used in the past.”
“Never seem people so crookish like paopa /ECSL ! Tallying must be beamed on projectors so party agents will verify against RRF forms result ! They want to change 40 to 140. Like they did in bye elections! We will resist this last attempt”, an APC supporter complained on social media.
The APC are suspicious that as was done in 2018, the SLPP- controlled Elections Commission will change the scores in favour of the SLPP during the tallying of figures and transmission to the Commission’s computer. They want the ECSL to display the figures on a projector so that party agents can verify that the same figures on the RRF forms from the counting in the polling stations will be the exact numbers that will be transmitted to the computers.
THIS IS WHY APC DOES NOT TRUST SLPP WITH ELECTRONIC TALLYING OF RESULTS
National Elections Watch ( NEW ) complaint -October 4, 2021 : Koinadugu Bye-elections .
“The Tallying was suspended due to discrepancies in the entry of the results into the tallying sheet. ”
“During the tallying, these discrepancies were detected by Dr. Richard Konteh and Dr. Kaifala Marah of the APC on the results from Centre code 6096. The actual result in RRF forms were APC 101 and SLPP 69. But the figures entered into the tally sheet were 101 for APC and 169 for SLPP. This was verified by NEC and the actual figure in the RRF was inputted. The NEC staff who did the wrong inputting was immediately replaced. Later, another wrong input was also detected for Sewaia. This was also detected by Dr. Richard Konteh. NEC was trying to do verification on the second discrepancy by going through the NEC RRF forms when argument ensued between the APC and SLPP in the Tally Centre Hall. The police could not handle the impasse between the two parties. ”
“The Commissioner for NEC, Commissioner Edmond S. Alpha, called on the leadership of the two political parties in the Tally Centre, Napoleon Koroma (Esq.) for SLPP and Dr. Kaifala Marah of the APC, to calm down their membership so that they will proceed with the tallying process. He also asked that everyone should go out of the Tally Centre and five representatives of each of the parties be allowed in. The Commissioner then asked the police to take the necessary action but the tension was still rising. The Commissioner therefore decided to suspend the tallying process till further notice. ”
“The following political stalwarts were present at the Tallying Centre; Umaru Napoleon Koroma (Esq.), Mantene Marah, Dr Richard Konteh, Dr Kaifala, Hon. Lamin Kabba and Hon Lahai Marah. Ordinary supporters of both political parties that had no role in the tallying process were allowed in the hall. ”
Reference : National Elections Watch accuses SLPP of serious elections malpractices at last weekend’s Koinadugu elections
