Democracy Held Hostage In Sierra Leone
By Mohamed Sankoh (One Drop)
What a divisive way to celebrate a divisive electoral victory: chase and beat up supporters of the All Peopleโs Congress (APC) on the streets and in their communities; burn down their houses and cars; destroy their stalls at Abacha Street in central Freetown, and terrorize them into accepting the unacceptable elections results.
The aftermath of a questionable electoral victory by the ruling Sierra Leone Peopleโs Party (SLPP) has given an indication of how the next five years will look like in Sierra Leone. From the uncouth celebrations by SLPP supporters unto the physical threats against APC supporters nationwide; the country appears to be heading towards another five years of blatant human rights abuses, illegal arrests and detentions, and five more years of divisiveness amongst Sierra Leoneans.
With another five years of President Julius Maada Bio at the rudder; Sierra Leone will be going โfrom adding insult to injury to rubbing salt in the woundโ (to quote Prince Harry from his Book: โSpareโ).
President Bio will not get any better in terms of administrative shrewdness. He will become more dictatorial, and he will continue with his trademark half-truths and outright lies!
Even in his โAcceptance Addressโ of Tuesday 27 June 2023, following the Oath of Office as president-elect, that trademark resurfaces. President Bio tells the nation that, โThis has been a peaceful electoral process that has produced an incontestable result that truly reflects the will of the peopleโฆ.โ That statement appears to be a blatant lie. The electoral processes were fraught with irregularities and lack of transparency to the extent that the European Union Election Observation Mission (EU EOM) is still calling on the โElectoral Commission for Sierra Leone [ECSL] to promptly publish disaggregated results data at polling station level, to ensure transparency and public scrutinyโ.
Numerous international elections observation missions, which were present in countless polling stations nationwide, have also highlighted, and still highlighting, โstatistical inconsistencies between the first and second batch of presidential results published by theโฆECSL on 26 and 27 June, respectively (to quote the EU EOM)โ. Even a โJoint Statementโ by Sierra Leoneโs Development Partners (U.S., UK, Ireland, Germany, France and EU Delegation), dated Wednesday 28 June 2023, noted โsignificant logistical problems [which] hampered voting on election day in certain areasโฆ.[and] the lack of transparency in the tabulation processโ.
Yet, President Bio audaciously told the nation last Tuesday that the Presidential Election result, which the Chief Electoral Commissioner Mohamed Konneh announced, โtruly reflects the will of the peopleโ. But how can it โtruly reflects the will of the peopleโ when the EU EOM is accusing the ECSL โof inconsistencies, and lack of integrity in most of the key activities of the election including the tabulation of resultsโ? How can it โtruly reflects the will of the peopleโ when the Carter Center observers reported that the tabulation process โlacked adequate levels of transparencyโ, noting that they also observed โinstances of broken seals and inappropriately open ballot boxesโ in some tally centersโ? And how can that Presidential Election result โtruly reflects the will of the peopleโ when the ECSL is still refusing to publish detailed โresults at the polling station level to allow for cross-verification in accordance with international best practiceโ?
Additionally, the National Election Watch (NEW), an independent coalition of Civic and Non-Governmental Organizations, has clearly highlighted how Democracy has been held hostage in Sierra Leone. In its โ27 June 2023โ Independent Non-Partisan Assessment Of Presidential Election Results Statementโ, it noted that if the Presidential Election was conducted fairly and freely โno candidate should have met the constitutional threshold of 55% to avoid a runoffโ at the first ballot. According to its Process and Results Verification for Transparency (PRVT) methodology, President Bio โโฆshould [have] receive[d] between 47.7% and 53.1% (a point estimate of 50.4% with a margin of error of +/- 2.7%) of the vote while ECSLโs official result puts it at 56.1%โ and that Dr Samura Kamara โโฆshould [have] receive[d] between 43.8% and 49.2% (a point estimate of 46.5% with a margin of error of +/- 2.7%) of the vote while ECSLโs official result puts it at 41.2%โ,
The above clearly shows that what Mohamed Konneh and his ECSL rammed down our throats do not truly reflect the peopleโs will. NEWโs projections have always matched the official results of the Electoral Commission as were the cases in the 2007, 2012 and 2018 elections in Sierra Leone. So, I have no reasons to doubt its 2023 projections!
And โfrom adding insult to injury to rubbing salt in the woundโ (Quoting Prince Harry again.), Mr Konneh and his ECSL iced their rigging cake last Saturday at the auditorium of the Freetown International Conference Centre, Aberdeen west of Freetown, when they released the cooked-up results for the elections of Mayors, District Chairpersons, Councillors, and Members of Parliament. These last sets of results are laughably tragic for Democracy in Sierra Leone. They just show that even kindergartens are good at mathematics than Mr Konneh and his ilk at the ECSL. Those results show that the ECSL had already prepared their results weeks before the actual voting took place.
And it is laughably laughable for President Bio to โextend a hand of fellowshipโ to those who he once referred to as โterroristsโ and โinsurrectionistsโ to join him in โthe arduous task of nation buildingโ. The first thing which I think he should have done was to have apologized to the APC and its leaders for referring to them as such. Anything short of a full unequivocal apology will be likened to a situation in which President Biden calls on members of Al-Qaeda and ISIS to join him in rebuilding Iraq and Syria!
And knowing President Bioโs modus operandi in the last five years, I donโt think he is honest when he says, in that โAcceptance Addressโ, that he has always โcommitted to being a fair leader and the President for allโ. His statecraft has always shown that he is more committed to being a fair leader to his tribesmen and political party than being โthe President for allโ Sierra Leoneans. Has he forgotten that he once told the nation, in a local radio interview (98.1 Radio Democracy), that he was more comfortable with the work ethics of his tribesmen than other tribes in, and of, the country? President Bio has been the most divisive Head of State Sierra Leone has ever had since Independence in 1961.
With such divisive and questionable electoral victory by the SLPP; with the APC declaring โits non-participation in any level of governance, including the legislature and local councilsโ, and with Democracy now held hostage; Sierra Leone appears to be heading towards an apocalypse because our once-upon-a-time vocal religious leaders and Civil Society activists have been compromised!
medsankoh@yahoo.com/+232-76-611-986; https://nationalistsl.com
