The National Electoral Commission (NEC) will increase the number of polling centres across the country by 10 per cent for the forthcoming 2023 general elections. This information was revealed to this press recently by the deputy head of media at NEC Christopher A. A. Jones following the latest rumours making the rounds across the country that the 2023 elections will reportedly take place in November 2023.
Before this latest announcement, NEC had been using over twenty thousand (20,000) polling centres nationwide to conduct the general elections. Despite this huge number, the NEC was still facing series of challenges bordering on inadequate number of polling stations across the country, especially in hard to reach areas in rural communities.
According to Christopher A. A. Jones, the national election governing body will add over two thousand (2,000+) polling centres nationwide to ensure that each registered Sierra Leonean has unhindered access to a voting centre near his/her community. He continued that NEC will start using the increased number of centres during the upcoming voter’s registration exercise which is expected to take place by the end of this year and that the addition of these centres will add up to the cost of holding the forthcoming elections.
Jones told this press that the additional polling centres will also enable NEC to employ more temporal workers for the upcoming elections and political parties to take part in the election to increase the number of polling staff for the said elections.
He continued that NEC is presently working towards the starting of the voter registration exercise, noting that before it commences, they will be working with the National Civil Registration Authority (NCRA) to extract the names of people who are above eighteen (18) years of age. Jones furthered that after the extraction exercise with the NCRA, they will publish the names of all eligible voters at several centres established for the process to be transparent and fair for participating political parties.
Furthermore, Mr Jones stated that NEC is planning to hold consultations with the president on the way forward for the announcement of the date for the 2023 elections as the term for the current president will come to an end in April 2023. Meanwhile, members of the main opposition parties are calling on NEC to make sure that political parties are fully represented whenever it comes to making decisions for the 2023 elections or otherwise they will boycott the process.