Recommendations for electoral forms have been in the public domain for a week now generating a endless debates, but the people still wait for the report by Katie Sullivan, a former Australian Judge. All eyes are fixed to the judge who the people know for neutrality, and has displayed it in the election probe.
The Tripartite Committee, a quasi-judicial body, was set up after a three-day dialogue between the ruling Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) and the main opposition, All People’s Congress (APC) following controversies from the two sides. Each party claimed to have won the election with allegations of widespread irregularities.
Kate, once a Supreme Court Judge, is here in Sierra Leone to help members of the Tripartite Committee look into alleged irregularities of June 24, 2023 general elections and her recommendations which are yet to be released is one of the hottest topics for discussion.
Katie Sullivan is in charge of the Secretariat of the Tripartite Committee and is set to set the records straight. She replaced the Kenya judge following a petitioned filed by the ruling party.
She recently released 80 recommendations for electoral reforms, the first set in the election probe, is about reviewing existing laws and policies to ensure that future elections are free, fair and credible.
However, such recommendations, according to public discussions, do not matter much compared to those bordering on the results examination and electoral justice as recently indicated by the opposition leader, Dr Samura Kamara. More recommendations will be out soon.
The results examination process seeks to establish who win June 24, 2023 election by examining evidence tendered by the two political parties and the electoral justice finds out alleged irregularities with a view to bring to justice those who played significant role in rigging the elections.
According to reliable sources, the opposition leader, Samura Kamara got 57.15 percent of the 71% of the results submitted so far by the APC while the ruling party, SLPP scored about 37%.
The remaining 29% hangs on the balance since most of APC’s election agents were not given access to several polling stations in the South-East regions, strongholds of the SLPP.
The initial statistics show that the opposition leader won the election exceeding the 55% constitutional threshold making him the rightful winner of the election.
Consequently, he demands that either President Bio steps aside or a rerun of the election is held without Mohamed Konneh and his commissioners.
The choice is a hard one for the President as each means a bitter pill to swallow. To step aside after one-year rule means a big risk for Bio as his people will come after him on suspicion of a sell-out.
Almost invariably, any other election for now also signals a defeat for President Bio as Sierra Leone’s economic situation is a disaster for the masses. An unbearable high inflation, weak exchange rate, depreciation of the Leones and cost-of-living crisis among other factors would badly affect SLPP’s performance in the elections.
Vox pops and media interviews conducted on the people of Sierra Leone even in SLPP strongholds show that the people are fed up with the SLPP government and urgently needs a change.
Reliable sources have also intimated this press that the ruling party is currently in hot negotiation with the opposition for a headway, but many say a way could not be reached at the moment as the opposition leader stands between and the deep Blue sea. He is sure to incur the people’s wrath if he goes into compromise with the Bio regime.
For the Electoral Justice, all officials including those in opposition political parties who are suspected to have undermined democracy through election rigging would be humbled in a court of law.
Sierra Leone is a signatory to a number of conventions and treaties on democracy and good governance and most of them have ratified and domesticated.
Sierra Leone’s local laws particularly the Constitution of 1991 and the Public Elections Act, 2022 also makes it mandatory for ECSL (Electoral Commission for Sierra Leone) to hold free and fair elections, but falls short in the June polls according to international and local election reports.
All election observation missions indicated that the polls “lacked transparency” at all stages and same time riddled with “statistical inconsistencies” and “mathematical inaccuracies” thus rendering the electoral process a sham.
EU report also showed instances in which APC members and supporters including the party leader, Dr Samura Kamara were attacked with others fatally injured. According to reports, Kamara himself narrowly escaped assassination on several occasions before, during and after the elections.
Samura Kamara, according to the report came under attack at Mile-38 Checkpoint several kilometres away from Sierra Leone’s capital, Freetown on his return to the country from an overseas trip.
A day after the election, state security forces also placed the opposition leader and his entourage under siege at the party office in Freetown through a gunfire that also resulted into fatality.
The terror tactics is a form of election rigging and the Carter Centre Foundation, a Tink-Tank election observation group did not only accuse the ruling party of election but also recommended that those who rigged the election had to face justice.
It is also clear that the over 500-page election by the Tripartite Committee report capture brutal incidents as well as the election rigging which will surely go against the interest and desires of the ruling party.
Gauging the views of political analysts and commentators, APC’s election victory over SLPP is not only the sole effort of the people in the North-West regions but also a protest votes by voters in the South-East, heartland of the ruling party owing to SLPP’s poor performance over the years.
South-Easterners, in 2017, voted in SLPP with high expectations that the Bio regime will follow the development trajectory which Sierra Leone is well placed. However, SLPP’s failure to meet the demands and expectations of the people caused them to turn their backs against the government.
Their snub against SLPP started in the registration period when the people in the South-Eastern regional headquarters in Bo and Kenema refused to register saying their party had failed them although SLPP members of parliament and councils tried hard to take their people to registration centres.
It was a hard and difficult task for them as registration figures released by election authorities showed a low turn out at registration centres.
Although it took ECSL too long to release the registration results, the figures released show that there were about 2, 000, 000 (two million) voters as compared to the South-East which recorded slightly above 1, 000, 000 (one million), and the trend continued on to the day of voting as shown by the actual results upon investigation.
Currently, the people of Sierra Leone wanted to see the report out as they hope to get a political transition in the near future. The people also hope that with a new dispensation, their suffering, oppression and arbitrary rule is sure to come an end; their plight will be trampled in the dust of history under a new leadership.
For quite too long, the people hold the fear that as long as SLPP is in governance, their struggle will still continue since their main complaint holds that they have not been enjoying freedom in the country.
It is not uncommon to see roadblocks mounted in several communities in Freetown and other towns and villages in opposition strongholds owing to report or suspicion of any security threat, but all threats will end when the report comes out.