This column specifically focuses at the work of the Tripartite Committee also known as the Election Committee (EIC) to ensure that it stays within the time limit as demanded by the communiqué.
The Tripartite Committee should end its work at the end of June, this year, and it has 87 (eighty-seven) days more to go.
By virtue of the date of its launching, the committee should have completed work this month, but two months was wasted owing to unexplained reasons. Now, it is in full swing as the election experts reportedly jetted in lately.
The investigators’ role is to probe the June 24, 2023 elections to establish whether there was rigging, and if there was, how was it done and what can be done to prevent the anomaly in future elections.
The committee, according to the communiqué has only six months to go through its work, but delays added another two months.
It took the committee months to start work after its launching.
The terms of reference document was endorsed almost two months ago at the New Brookfields Hotel in Freetown after a $1.5m was donated by the United States.
The committee was set up after widespread allegations of election rigging by local and international election missions particularly European Union, Commonwealth, Carter Center, G7+, African Union and the Economic Community Of West African States as well as the National Elections Watch.
The committee is a product of a communiqué signed between the main opposition, All People’s Congress (APC) and the ruling Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) after the two parties failed to end a post-election stalemate that endangered peace and national cohesion.
The mediation which led to the signing of the communique was facilitated by the international community (Commonwealth, African Union and the Economic Community of West African States), a move that ended a three-month boycott of parliament and local councils by the APC.
The committee represents the last hope for the people of Sierra Leone who participated in the June, 2023 multi-tier elections, and the outcome of the investigation will determine Sierra Leone’s socio-political and economic outlook in coming years.