By Mohamed Jaward Nyallay
Just over two weeks ago the Member of Parliament representing constituency 43, Momodu Eskimo Mansaray passed away.
Eskimo, as he was commonly known, was a member of the All Peoples Congress. He was one of the first timers in Parliament, where he served in the special select committees of Fisheries and Marine Resources; Defence and Presidential Affairs; and Sports.
Eskimo’s death has left a vacancy in the House. To fill that vacancy a whole new political process is set to commence; from nomination, right up to a bye-election.
Sadly, bye elections have increasingly become a bloody affair in Sierra Leone. The last one conducted in September 2018 in Tonko Limba in the north of the country, left a 14 year old boy dead.
To put the scale of the bloodiness into context, that bye election was just a contest for a local council seat. Constituency 43 is in the Koinadugu district. Despite the gains made by the Sierra Leone Peoples Party (SLPP) in the 2018 elections there, the district is still Red.
Yet as Red as that seat is, APC are ready to give it away to SLPP; off course not with goodwill.
In the aftermath of the Tonko Limba bye-election, the APC and the National Grand Coalition (NGC) released a statement condemning its outcome and calling for the resignation of the chief electoral commissioner. NGC is the 4th largest party in the House of Parliament. The two parties said they would boycott all future elections held under the watch of Mohamed N’Fa Allie Conteh as chairman of the National Electoral Commission (NEC).
“We in the APC have lost faith, trust and confidence in the NEC as currently constituted to be an impartial, competent and credible institution to conduct any other election(s) in Sierra Leone. The nefarious actions of NEC could threaten the peace, security, stability and unity of Sierra Leone,” the APC said in its statement.
And to show how serious it is about this threat, APC MPs have gone ahead to walked out of Parliament during the confirmation of NEC’s Southern region electoral commissioner.
The NGC, in its statement, slammed the NEC boss as incompetent and said he was unfit to handle any trustworthy election.
“Consistent with our conclusion that NEC under its current leadership is untrustworthy, incompetent and unfit to handle elections in our fragile democracy, the NGC will not take part in the forthcoming Local bye election in Ward 257, Koya Chiefdom, Port Loko District,” it stressed.
Both parties have stayed through to their words by not filing in candidates for the Port Loko contest which was narrowly won by the SLPP. SLPP’s Abu Bakarr Bangura won by the slim margin of eight votes against the candidate of the little known Unity Party.
It is important to note also that both APC and NGC made the decision to boycott elections with only the Ward 257 bye election in Port Loko in sight. Things might be different now within the ranks of the parties, especially the APC, given that the vacancy in parliament is in their backyard.
An NGC official has confirmed told Politico that their stance on boycotting future elections hasn’t changed.
Several attempts to get the APC to comment on whether they will reconsider their position proved unsuccessful. The party’s spokesman, Cornelius Deveaux turned down our request for a comment.
APC still has majority in the House, more than all three other parties combined. But even with that majority they have been outmanoeuvre on many occasions by the ruling SLPP bench. To add to their troubles, the main opposition has 16 of their MPs, including their leader in the House, presently fighting for their seats in court. Losing a seat at this time, no matter how, is unacceptable for a party in this situation.
Whatever the APC ends up deciding on, the stakes remain very high.
The defiant NEC has said it will not alter the electoral calendar for any party, regardless. The head of media and public outreach at NEC, Albert Massaqoui, however said they were open to dialogue.
“We don’t have any big or small parties. To the National Electoral Commission all the parties are equal,” he told Politico.
How did we get here?
The decision by the APC and NGC to boycott elections did not just happen. It was born out of irregularities that were orchestrated by NEC staff in the Tonko Limba elections where five members of the electoral staff were found to have been involved in ballot stuffing and pre-marked ballot. This is something NEC itself has taken responsibility for.
Massaqoui said it happened despite all efforts taken by the Commission to safeguard the credibility of the electoral process.
“Even though they are short term staff, we took full responsibility and handed them over to the Police,” he said.
But that action clearly did not seem enough, especially to the APC and NGC. Five polling stations were affected by the irregularities. The opposition parties argued that that was enough for the whole election to be cancelled. But the NEC couldn’t do that, saying it did not have the legal authority.
“Our laws only support us to cancel elections in polling stations if there was over voting. We cannot cancel the election on any other grounds. We would have to continue with the process, announce the results and the aggrieved sides will then take it to the court. Only the Supreme Court has the power to cancel an election on any other grounds,” Massaqoui explained.
What will this boycott mean?
What will the boycott of elections mean for the country’s fledgling democracy?
To the ruling party it will be a free ride to win whatever vacant seat that is up for grabs, but that will certainly come at a cost.
Civil society activist Ibrahim Tommy said in a radio interview that boycotting election is not new, but he warned that eventually it would have a negative impact on the country’s democratic image. He said creating a situation where every party feels comfortable to participate in elections is the best way to go.
NEC and the future
With NEC, there is a looming concern that they must address. The fact that the Commission’s recruitment system could be infiltrated is a major concern. They must always be in a position wherein their staff can be trusted to handle elections fairly.
The National Elections Watch (NEW), the coalition of civil society organizations which monitors the country’s electoral process, has been the most vocal independent pressure group over the controversial conduct of the by-election in Tonko Limba. NEW was particularly concerned about the lack of clear explanation by NEC on why two separate ballot papers were used.
Sallieu Kamara, a spokesperson for the coalition, told Politico that they were hoping a lot of those problems will be fixed as soon as possible.
“We wrote to NEC about our concerns and they didn’t get back to us directly. We are concerned; we know what happened in Tonko Limba. We won’t know if our concerns have been looked into until the next elections,” Kamara said prior to the Port Loko by-election.
If it is any consolation, the electoral body has said it is tightening up recruitment procedures, which will include seeking Police clearance from applicants.
“We know NEC has a mandate to conduct free, fair and credible elections. That is why from now onwards our recruitment process will be very rigorous,” Massaqoui said.
This one bye election might not change the balance of power in the Sierra Leonean Parliament, no matter who wins it. But whoever contests and wins it, will be showing how strong their party is.
(c) 2019 Politico Online
