Opposition leader, Samura Kamara always says “June 24, 2023 election is not yet over until it is over,” but when will it be over is the most frequently asked question at the moment.
The statement is a way of restoring hope in APC (All People’s Congress)’s rank and file that their stolen votes would be brought back at all cost.
Kamara, APC’s flag-bearer and presidential candidate in the controversial June election, is said to have made huge gains in the polls, but stolen by the PAOPA regime with the party’s lower cadre members, supporters and sympathisers at the wrong end.
Situation is made more dangerous when the flag-bearer moves at a snail pace while President Bio is slowly entering his two-year reign. Sooner or later, Bio would round up his two years, work for a third-year plan and declare election.
Sierra Leoneans expected that work of the Tripartite Committee ought to have come to an end last Wednesday, 19th June, 2024, a date seen as a redline SLPP should not cross.
Currently, SLPP-led government has requested the opposition party, the people of Sierra Leone and the international community that they needed 10 more days to round up its work after eight months of election probe.
The request for 10 days which beat down the imagination of the people of Sierra Leone came after Mohamed Konneh refused to clarify at the Tripartite Committee several issues that surrounded the 60% of the election results announced in June last year.
The Tripartite Committee was set up to investigate alleged irregularities of the June polls and proffer recommendations and to ascertain the actual winner.
Mohamed Konneh is head of ECSL (Electoral Commission for Sierra Leone), a body mandated by law to conduct and supervise all public elections in Sierra Leone, a post that makes him a central personality at the Tripartite Committee.
Launched in November, 2023, the committee is expected to have ended its work by April of the same year, but dragged to June owing to delays by government itself.
If it all goes well, the people look forward again to 29th June of this year but not with certainty as government could come up with a new plan as a form of delay tactics.
The current situation leads the people into wondering whether the election will be over after 2028, 2033, 2038 or until thy Kingdom Come.
One may think that the questions are mere mavericks, but they are not as they appear to be wits and tricks the opposition leader is suspected to have adopted to hold indefinitely APC in the political wilderness.
In most of his public addresses, much has not been said by the opposition leader that would trigger action within the SLPP (Sierra Leone People’s Party) camp. Even his address made at the Tripartite Committee, according to observers in the media and the public, was never hard-hitting thus raising another aura of speculations as to whether Samura Kamara is really ready for the presidency or another hoax altogether.
Kamara’s statement at the submission of the long-waited report of the election probe sounded highly defensive of the committee emphatic of electoral reforms for future elections.
“The Tripartite Committee is about electoral and institutional reforms, and it is in its final stage of its work and will present a comprehensive report to the President,” Samura addressed the nation.
Little wonder that SLPP’s senior politicians always urge the opposition leader to say the truth to his people, a situation that portrays Samura Kamara as one that has gone into compromise with the ruling party.
In such a situation, Samura Kamara is expected to robustly resist such statements if people are to see him as a man with clean hands. ‘Clean hands’ have been Kamara’s campaign mantra in the 2018 and 2023 elections but a big cloud of suspicion hangs over him owing to his inaction.
Majority of APC supporters are of the notion that the APC’s flag-bearer and presidential candidate is apparently not ready to lead the party and the country, moves which he started before the polls particularly when he killed demand for the voter register.
The people of Sierra Leone particularly those in the North-West regions had wanted to resist ECSL when it launched the ‘No Data, No Election’ campaign. The move was one that compelled Konneh to release the voter register ahead of election for transparency and fairness. However, Kamara’s call for the people to the polls with assurance that he would protect their votes abruptly ended the campaign.
Highly confident in the opposition leader, the people cast their votes amid challenges of delays, late deployment of staff, insecurity, harassment and intimidation to ensure that the Bio regime is removed through the ballot box.
But the situation never went as expected as the incumbent, President Bio was declared winner and sworn on the same day in the midst of heavy security despite tough feedback from all election observation missions.
UN, EU, AU, ECOWAS, Carter Centre, G7+ and NEW election observers said, in their various reports, that Bio was not the winner of the elections, a situation which would have spurred Samura Kamara into action if indeed he was ready to protect the people’s votes.
Instead of taking the necessary action as the de facto winner of the election, Kamara lay back on his side hoping to make gains with age-old diplomacy. His over-simplicity in such a hot political landscape makes him appear funny in the eyes of APC supporters and the international community.
Not knowing what to do, the people initially lost hope, but hope was restored after APC’s elected officials (parliamentarians and councillors) refused to subscribe to oath of office saying they would not work with what they called officials of an “illegal regime.”
The opposition leader also constantly tagged, government officials as those of an “illegal regime,” but many say he does not press hard to take back the people’s stolen glory.
APC’s non-participation in local and central governments nearly brought the PAOPA regime to an end, but got back renewed energy and vigour to fight back after Samura Kamara reportedly called for a three-day mediation between his party, APC and the SLPP brokered by the international community.
Prior to the commencement of peace talks at the New Brookfields hotel in Freetown, Samura Kamara also assured the people of Sierra Leone that he would not sign any peace document if political prisoners are not released and political cases discontinued in court.
He also failed to fulfill this promise as he signed the communiqué when thousands of North-Westerners are languishing behind bars. Although many see the communiqué as good deal for APC, it however goes a long way in legitimising the PAOPA government which has nothing to offer to the people of Sierra Leone.
The communiqué from which the Tripartite Committee emanated would have been a big asset to the people of Sierra Leone if its resolutions are respected by government, the key signatory.
Since it came into force, the communiqué which should be seen as a sacred document for real peace and national cohesion has been completely bastardised and desecrated by the government as President Bio constantly questions its relevance to Sierra Leone’s elections.
“The Tripartite has no result and lacks the power to recommend a rerun of the elections,” President Bio told some SLPP/PAOPA hardliners in the South-eastern region implying that he was not bound by the document.
The President made the statement at a time the people of Sierra Leone were eager about either a rerun or fresh election or declaration of Samura Kamara President of Sierra Leone since he is widely seen winner of the June polls.
But, a docile and highly confident Samura Kamara would remark that “election is not a do-or-die” affair when Bio says it is bullet for bullet.