In a desperate bid to belong our embattled president, who many say is operating on a stolen and undemocratic mandate, has sent a letter or message congratulating the winner of the United Kingdom elections, Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Labour.
The people of Britain voted against the incumbent Rishi Sunak of the Conservative Party and elected the challenger in a sweeping vote that saw the Conservatives losing their 14 year old grip on the Office of the Prime Minister at 10 Downing Street.
Sierra Leoneans were meanwhile denied a change of the presidency by some staggering antidemocratic moves by the incumbent party and head of state.
What is sad about this congratulation from president Bio is that the British government, not under the former PM Rishi Sunak through his High Commissioner here in Sierra Leone, never congratulated president Bio, neither on his first nor this his second term victory.
As a matter of fact no one ever congratulated Mr Bio as the countries in the region, represented by ECOWAS, are all against his claimed or conferred victory; neither did any nation in Africa represented by the African Union (AU) that also rejected the elections result announcing president Bio as the winner of the 24 June 2023 presidential elections.
In his congratulatory message to Prime Minister Starmer, president Julius Maada Bio said, “The democratic process that culminated in the election of Prime Minister Starmer is a testament to the values that underpin our shared commitment to democratic governance.”
Once again president Bio’s speech writers have written another self-convicting and contradictory speech for the president whose speech is not in line with the reality on the ground against the nation’s chief executive.
Mr Bio needs to be reminded that the Sierra Leone version of the democratic process for the 2023 presidential election started with the pattern of rigging that ended with his chief electoral commissioner releasing a result that the entire diplomatic community in Sierra Leone including the elections observers from around the world, the people and the main opposition APC outright rejected upon the announcement.
By capturing all our elections management bodies by his hiring of the substantive heads of the ONS, SLP, RSLAF, ECSL, PPRC, SSL, and NCRA, Mr Bio and the ruling SLPP regime bastardised the democratic governance by naming his partisans to head such institutions against set procedures, as even the Chief Electoral Commissioner (CEC) was head of the Financial Intelligence Unit of the Ministry of Finance at his appointment as CEC, against set procedure for his appointment.
On several occasions, ranking members of the SLPP, including Dr Prince Harding and president Bio, have informed their party members and indeed the main opposition that they will not hand power over to the APC party, which is a very undemocratic statement to make. Many people believe that although the APC had won the past presidential elections, based on this promise, Bio had his ECSL appointed head announce a result that made him winner, which almost led to chaos across the country.
Since the SLPP has never won a majority in the House of Parliament, president Bio and his electoral commissioner introduced the PR system of elections meant for a situation where there are no constituencies. But Bio introduced it and used it to ensure a majority in this Sixth Parliament. While the PR system is good in the hands of people that are democratic, in the hands of the SLPP it was used in a calculated way to bypass democracy.
At a retreat in Bo where several Paramount Chiefs were crowned by the president, he made a now notorious speech where he threatened citizens calling for a protest action on June 19 that they will be met “bullet for bullet”. June 19 was the day the Tripartite Committee that was established to review our electoral processes was meant to hand over its report and recommendations. The day left the capital Freetown looking like a ghost town as people stayed away fearful of another day of infamy as August 10, 2022.
In the 2018 elections, the APC won 68 seats to the SLPP’s 49 in the House, but in order to get a majority, which Maada Bio failed to achieve as the winning presidential candidate, the SLPP working with security people brutally kicked members of the APC out of the Well before the vote, which was conducted in their absence that resulted to Dr Abass Bundu being installed as Speaker, and 10 winning MPs kicked out of Parliament using the courts instead of the constitutional provision of a bye-election.
Before elections day on 24 June 2023, several people across Sierra Leone had their homes set on fire by ruling party supporters with many fleeing their towns, villages and cities to save their lives. On elections day many people didn’t get to vote as many polling stations remained closed until after the end of the voting process.
The people of Sierra Leone were denied the experience of “the transformative power of elections” as their votes were stolen and conferred on the incumbent. While the people of the UK took part in the election to elect their Prime Minister, the people of Sierra Leone were mostly disenfranchised that day with many not knowing if their votes were counted as the chief electoral commissioner has repeatedly failed to release the demanded disaggregated voting data per polling station across the country.
These are not democratic processes that anyone in England would stand for, not even an incumbent Prime Minister and the people of the country.
Our president should stop embarrassing the people of Sierra Leone with such glowing speeches that are democratic in spirit but far from what he has done to our democratic credentials as a people and nation. Lonta!