As threats of demonstration became real, opposition leader, Dr Samura Kamara has come under intense criticisms for failing to deliver the right messages to low cadre APC (All People’s Congress) members and supporters.
The people of Sierra Leone especially APC supporters have turned their attention to their leader who is expected to take the bull by the horns to show that his hands are clean.
At the moment, Kamara is on the horns of a dilemma and also stands between the devil and the deep Blue sea.
He risks physical attacks from his party comrades if he fails to take sides with them and also similarly runs vulnerability of arrest and detention if he backs the protesters.
Whatever the situation, Samura Kamara is expected to bring back APC’s victory as he promised to protect the voters’ votes on the eve of the elections.
However, it appears as if the move to secure the votes was a tough one for the opposition leader since he appears mute and tight-lipped amid bullet-for-bullet threats coming from President Julius Maada Bio. Majority of Sierra Leoneans believe that Bio did not win the elections relying on reports from the international community.
Despite the challenge, Samura Kamara still maintains his cool moves and diplomacy standing by his notion that “election is not a do-or-die affair.”
The proposed protest, according to reliable sources, is linked to a no rerun stance taken by the government and diplomatic circles.
The US Ambassador, David Hunt was the first to break the ice about no rerun of June 24, 2023 election before it was amplified by President Bio during a meeting with SLPP (Sierra Leone People’s Party) in the Southern city of Bo.
President Bio said “the election is over and everyone should look forward to 2028.”
The no rerun claim by the US diplomat stunned and shocked Samura Kamara with many saying he reportedly met Hunt for talks. However, such effort was not enough.
According to a local civil rights activist, name withheld, the opposition leader has not done enough to forestall what is about to befall this nation.
He directly accused Kamara of failing to inform his people that there would be no rerun of the election until 2028.
“All what the Tripartite Committee is doing now is to come up with recommendations for future elections and not a rerun or fresh election,” he said adding that Kamara ought to have communicated this message long ago.
Other social and political commentators also made similar allegations against Dr Samura Kamara who they said had not released correct messages to the people.
The activist also emphasised that the opposition leader knew quite well that at the time of the signing, there would be no other election until 2028, but Samura Kamara never informed his people about it.
A look at the October, 2023 communique shows that there is nothing that speaks about a rerun of the election, but only examination, findings and recommendations which are actionable and implementable.
The foundation for the hope of a rerun was laid strongly by reports of local and international election observation missions which indicated that the incumbent, President Bio did not win the election.
The local observer group, NEW (National Elections Watch) indicated that no candidate got the 55% threshold needed to avoid a run off making Bio’s occupation of the Office of the President illegal.
With such strong claims, Kamara is expected by his party members to take a strong stance, but appears to have been in deep slumber and has woken up amid a number of allegations against him coming from the ruling party.
This press cannot reach the opposition leader for his own side of the story, but the allegations made few months back are seemingly proving to be true by his snail-pace moves.
As a man who acquired his secondary education in the Southern region, many said Kamara had a secret deal with the PAOPAs and would not betray them. This allegation is strong and the opposition leader must fight back.
Quite lately, Kamara and his executive officials were also said to have accepted a $2m bribe from government to let go the election rigging, an allegation to which they never responded. Samura Kamara was just too confident and reticent about everything not even his communication team could make reasonable effort to counter the allegation.
His silence at a time he should act has been interpreted to mean a way of adding weight to the allegations made by members of the ruling party especially when he called on the people to vote at a time they were about to stage voter apathy on the election eve.
Looking back at the past, Samura Kamara acted tough especially in a press briefing held at New Brookfields hotel in Freetown where he highlighted issues of non-publication of voter register, printing of sub-standard and faceless voter identity cards, the tampering of electoral laws and the illegal appointment of the Chief Electoral Commissioner, Mohamed Kenewui Konneh among other factors.
In his two-hour presentation, Kamara painstakingly drew the attention of the international community to ECSL (Electoral Commission for Sierra Leone)’s failure to publish a comprehensive voter register which has been a normal practice for all past elections.
His claim was watertight since Konneh did not publish the voter register on to the polling day, a move that portended an opaque election in the near future.
From the non-publication of voters data, the opposition leader also took the audience to the printing of sub-standard and faceless voter identity cards which, he said, also went a long way to whittle down the fairness and transparency of the electoral process.
In spite of the huge sum of money offered to ECSL by the European Union and other development partners, the cards are not worth using in the polls as no one could tell who votes.
Many see Kamara’s criticism of the cards as utmost hypocrisy as he had initially praised them as good to go with.
Samura Kamara also did not ignore the tampering of the electoral framework to rig the elections in favour of the ruling party.
Just a year to the election, government interfered with the Public Elections, Local Government and Political Parties Regulation Commission laws to so that the incumbent could have a safe and smooth ride to victory.
The Proportional Representation (PR) Regulations also known as the District Block system was the worst law ever to have been enacted as it took Sierra Leone back to the war days according one of Africa’s most respected lawyers, Dr Abdulai Osman Conteh.
According to Dr Conteh, a country could use such electoral mode when an election date has been announced and there are no constituencies or when a significant portion of the country could not be reached caused by either an outbreak of epidemic or war.
The model, Dr Conteh said, was used in 1996 and 2002 general elections when Sierra Leone was engulfed in a civil war, but such method could not be used now. It has abandoned since 2007 when Sierra Leone finally settled for peace.
Despite the illegality, ECSL conducted the elections on the PR model to confer definite political advantage on the ruling party.
Dr Samura Kamara also challenged the appointment of Mohamed Konneh referring to it as arbitrary and illegal.
In a press statement, the opposition leader made it clear that Konneh was Director-General of the Financial Intelligence Unit in the Ministry of Finance, a post that disqualified him from holding such post of Chief Electoral Commissioner.
Besides, leaders of political parties were also not properly consulted on such appointment, another blatant abuse of the 1991 Constitution by the President.
The Constitution makes it clear that the President should consult leaders of all political parties prior to appointment and the prospective holder of the Chief Electoral Commissioner’s office should not be a public servant.
It was on the grounds of these anomalies that Samura Kamara called for the resignation of the ECSL boss or else there would be no election.
Kamara however changed his stance in a twinkle of an eye as he urged the people to vote with Konneh at the helm.
Now, he bears the onus of restoring the party’s victory and could achieve such mission by asking for help from the international community if he cannot do it alone.