Agreements are often implemented after the relevant parties have signed out of free consent. But, the implementation of the Tripartite Committee agreement is becoming an exception to this rule. The implementation of the Tripartite Committee’s recommendations, analysts and observers say, has been delayed since the signing of the Agreement for National Unity (ANU) in October, 2023; a move that has worn the people’s patience thin.
A splinter group within the main opposition, All People’s Congress (APC) known as the Electoral Justice Movement (EJM) has been championing the cause of taking back APC’s stolen victory.
EJM is formed and led by Samura Kamara, the embattled presidential candidate in the June 24, 2023 elections with the aim of restoring democracy in Sierra Leone.
The restoration of democracy is showing who wins the election and holding accountable those who play significant role in the rigging spree in favour of the incumbent, Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP).
EJM’s stance is tied to the recommendations of local and international election observation missions which heavily criticised the election from the beginning of the process to the end. All the reports indicated that the 2023 election was massively rigged and calls for investigation.
One of such missions is the US tink-tank election observation body, Carter Center which recommends accountability for those who rig the 2023 election.
The EJM has been looking up to the Tripartite Committee to make things happen, but some speed bumps have appeared along the way.
The situation compelled the EJM to call on the international moral guarantors to act and act now.
In one of his messages on twitter page, the EJM spokesman, Mohamed Warrisay urged the international community to fast track the implementation of the tripartite recommendations for peace to reign. Warrisay’s message is compelling and appealing to the world. “We shall never move on or bring things to a closure without the full implementation of all 85 recommendations of the Tripartite Committee’s investigation report. We shall never bring things to a close as long as drug cartels continue to operate in Sierra Leone and as long as the country continues to be led by a man like Maada Bio who is directly responsible for the many deaths and impoverishment of the people,” Warrisay appealed to the international community while responding to ex-President Ernest Koroma’s call for peace and cohesion. In his appeal to the moral guarantors, the EJM Spokesman declined to join anyone in covering up crimes committed by what he referred to a rogue regime sitting in Freetown. As he stands with the people of Sierra Leone,
Warrisay further threatened that “if the international moral guarantors and the international community listen to Ernest Bai Koroma and Maada Bio and treat the predicament of Sierra Leoneans as mere local politics, we will consider it a complete breakdown of democracy and betrayal of trust which could carry no small weight.”
These are threats which the international community and the Bio regime should not take lightly as the people of Sierra Leone seem determined to assert their rights again in the streets if the delays continue to water down the importance of the tripartite recommendations.
The delay on the implementation of the tripartite report started long ago after the signing of the ANU by parties to the election dispute.
The attempted coup of 26th November, 2024 was used as one of the factors to derail the election probe.
Government, for a long time, concentrated on the prosecution of coupists at the expense of the election probe.
Calls by erstwhile US Ambassador to Sierra Leone, David Bryan Hunt to commence the election probe while investigating the coup fell on deaf ears.
The delay still continued after the coup probe as government persistently complained of a lack of funds.
Government officials, on various occasions, informed the public that there was no money to fund the investigation.
To ensure that the investigation is carried out, the United States provided $1.5m to the Tripartite Committee, a move that injected fresh energy into the election investigation.
Work has been completed with 80 recommendations out for implementation with a view to reform Sierra Leone’s electoral process.
It is hoped that the incidents of electoral irregularities would be minimised once the recommendations are implemented.
Sierra Leone’s 1991 Constitution provides in section 40(4) that any agreement entered into by either the President or any other person designated to do so shall be ratified by parliament especially where it creates an expenditure on state finances or involves the alteration or amendment of any law.
Surely, if fully implemented, the tripartite recommendations will cause an amendment of either the constitution or sometimes, some laws of the land.
It is therefore a fit subject for discussion and debate within the walls of parliament.
But, the ANU and its attendant tripartite recommendations were never taken to parliament for ratification not until the moral guarantors engaged the two main political parties: the SLPP and APC.
It was quite a great pressure exerted on by the international community on the two political actors.
The recommendations, reports state, have been laid before parliament for over two months, but no debate on them has commenced.
In accordance with parliamentary standing orders, any document, any policy or instrument laid before the well of parliament for 21 days without debate automatically becomes law.
But, it appears as if the tripartite recommendations were not subject to such parliamentary procedure.
They have never become law since they were laid before parliament, and it is clear that by the time the debate on the tripartite recommendations commence, President Julius Maada Bio might have completed his final term and prepare to conduct another election which, analysts say, may be rigged again.