Is NEC Brewing Another Conflict?
By Mohamed Sankoh (One Drop)
Today, I will not write anything about President Julius Maada Bio whose government appears to be misogynistic in its modus operandi. The suspended Auditor General, Lara Taylor-Pearce, and the Freetown Mayor, Yvonne Aki-Sawyer, are two case studies of the several case studies of how women are being hounded by the Bio-led administration.
And least I’m being accused of misogyny myself; I will also not write anything about First Lady Fatima Bio whose social media gaffes and faux pas do not only seem to be embarrassments to the presidency in particular, and right-thinking Sierra Leoneans in general, but very un-First Lady-ian in their tastelessness! But I will keep mum on them for this week and “move”.
Again, I will not write about the “inconsistencies, irregularities and inaccuracies” in relation to receipts submitted by the Office of the President concerning overseas travels undertaken by President Bio and his large entourage, which always appears to be larger than the one that accompanied Mansa Musa on his pilgrimage to Mecca. I will not even write about a retired “Brigadier” who, after having extolled his services in the military, could skip the Armed Forces Day simply because it clashed with an overseas travel! And I will not write about the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) which appears to be aiding and abetting the ruling Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP)’s seemingly organised thievery!
What I will write about today is something different. In fact, differently different in a different manner. Let’s go to the Final Report of the European Union (EU) Election Follow-up Mission to Sierra Leone. In the “Executive Summary” it is stated that, “…key recommendations related to electoral management, which are designed to improve the integrity, accuracy, and transparency of elections, have not been implemented in by-elections since the EU EOM report in 2018. Some of the recommendations on election management remain under consideration by [the National Electoral Commission] NEC, but NEC has not yet presented plans to improve the fundamental integrity of electoral results…”
Whether Sierra Leone will be peaceful or slide into another civil conflict after the conduct of the Presidential, Parliamentary, and Local Council Elections in 2023 will solely depend on how NEC conduct those elections. The All People’s Congress (APC) has made it clear that it will not accept elections results that may have been suspected to be rigged. And some of its top influential stalwarts have voiced out their party’s determination to protect their supporters’ votes, through all lawful means, even if Rome will have to burn.
And looking at the current political affiliations and ethno-regional composition of NEC, both at Commissioner and District Election Manager levels, it is clear to even the blind that NEC is, certainly, an appendage of the SLPP. There is nothing like impartiality at NEC, at present. And if what the Africanist Press claimed is true, that most of the Commissioners and senior personnel deployed in the north and north-west districts are party card holders of the SLPP, then it might be inferred that NEC is brewing another would-be civil conflict that would have far reaching ramifications for the wellbeing of the nation’s health.
And I may be tempted to believe that the results of the 2023 Presidential, Parliamentary, and Local Council Elections will make or break Sierra Leone. Considering the chronic hardships which majority of Sierra Leoneans are going through at the moment, the massive corruption perpetrated and perpetuated by the ruling elite (as highlighted in the 2020 Audit Report by Audit Service Sierra Leone), the blatant human rights abuses allegedly committed by the very security apparatuses that are supposed to protect them, and the political arrogance endemically exhibited by senior members of the SLPP; anything short of an SLPP outright defeat might not be accepted by opposition parties.
And most Sierra Leoneans are of the opinion that because the SLPP has woefully failed to implement most of its 2018 campaign promises; it may be relying on NEC’s shenanigans to rig the 2023 elections. This widely held opinion, or rather suspicion, is gaining currency by the hour because of the way and manner in which NEC has been conducting by-elections since Julius Maada Bio won the presidency in the second-round election of 31 March 2018. I’m still trying to fathom why is NEC always eager to conduct by-elections in the south-eastern parts of the country, which are the strongholds of the ruling SLPP, but reluctant to do same in the north and north-west which are the strongholds of the party-in-waiting, the APC.
As I see it, NEC has not shown any sign of integrity in the manner in which its personnel have been carrying themselves before, during, and after by-elections. Without mincing my words, the Commission has exhibited high degree of inaccuracies and lack of transparency. These are two of the many factors that always brew civil conflicts after elections in Africa!
That fact is not lost on the European Union Election Follow-up Mission to Sierra Leone which notes, in its press release of 29 October 2021, that it has been told that “there is a significant decrease in trust in the essential bodies which play integral roles in the forthcoming elections. These include the judiciary, NEC, [the Political Parties Registration Commission] and the [Sierra Leone] police. The Mission findings are that these institutions’ reputations are less trusted than is needed. But further, our assessment is that there are real grounds for concern in the ways in which these bodies have administered recent by-elections”.
That statement, above, is a subtle way of saying that there is a high possibility of conflict after the 2023 elections because of the “significant decrease in trust in the essential bodies which play integral roles in the forthcoming elections.” And if the APC and other political parties, like the National Grand Coalition (NGC) and the Coalition 4 Change (C4C), are distrustful of the entire electoral processes even before they start, then accepting the end results of those distrustful processes would be challengingly challenging!
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