By Kemo Cham
A coalition of Civil Society Organisations which monitor the electoral process in Sierra Leone has urged the National Electoral Commission (NEC) to proclaim a specific date for general elections slated for 2018, warning of potential threats on the electoral calendar.
The National Elections Watch (NEW) cited a number of concerns it says poses a threat to derail the election process.
NEW, a coalition of local and international organizations with a common objective of supporting free and fair elections, also said delay in announcing the date for the elections was bound to deny a level playing field, thereby depriving some people from participating and leaving political parties unprepared.
The group also raised concern over a number of issues around preparation for the general elections. These include the failure to appoint a substantive chairman of the Political Parties Registration Commission (PPRC), and an ongoing exercise by the government which is intended to increase the number of districts in the country, which the activists say could delay the electoral process.
NEC has since set February 2018 for the elections. But it didn’t give a specific date.
As in 2012, three elections will be conducted in 2018: Presidential, parliamentary, and local council. Local government elections should have been held this December but they were postponed due to the delay in the conduct of the census process.
According to NEW officials, these demands are in line with recommendations of international and local observers in the 2012 elections.
Golo Kata, NEW spokesperson, said those recommendations were born out of the desire to ensure political parties are guided in their planning and preparation.
“Most of the elections observers in 2012 had one of their critical recommendations as making sure NEC declares the elections way before time so that it will ease tension and encourage more participation,” he said at a press conference held on Monday.
The constitution provides that the Chief Electoral Commissioner declares the date for the election in consultation with the President. And a constitutional provision governing the conduct of elections in the country forbids government officials paid from the Consolidated Revenue Fund from vying for political offices. This means that such people must have resigned from office at least 12 months prior to the polls.
NEW fears that potential candidates hoping to vie for political offices could get disenfranchised as a result of the delay in announcing the date.
“NEW urges that this important phase is completed and the date declared without further delay,” the group said in a statement issued to the media.
PPRC is responsible for registering and regulating the conduct of political Parties and their supporters. They also mediate intra and inter party conflicts to ensure political tolerance and a violent-free election. The Commission’s last chairman, Justice Tholla Thompson, died in September. NEW says the delay to appoint a substantive chairman creates a vacuum that could render the Commission incompetent.
Under an exercise called ‘deamalgamation,’ the government is seeking to reverse a colonial era decision which reduced the number of districts by fusing together smaller chiefdoms. The government says that has led to confusion in the administration of these chiefdoms.
But, argue NEW officials, this exercise will see an increase in the number of districts from the current 14. And they say this is bound to affect the recently concluded boundary delimitation exercise, which is a constitutional requirement.
They explained that this would mean re-doing the exercise all over again and that the time involved in re-doing the boundary delimitation would also require a new electoral calendar that would undermine the constitution.
“If you de-amalgamate chiefdoms then it means there will be more chiefdoms, and you will virtually have to re-ditrsict…and that has implications on the election calendar, it has cost implications on the elections activities, and it will virtually nullify current boundary delimitation we have done already,” Ngolo Katta, spokesman of NEW, told Politico on a telephone interview.
NEW also raised concern over the pace of the process of registering voters, as well as conflicting information coming out of the process.
The idea of a civil registration ignited a huge debate when it emerged that the voter register would be extracted from the central register that wasn’t going to be manned by the NEC. But discussions among political players and the civil society saw the authorities softened their position, allowing the NEC a greater role. But still the civil society say there are conflicting information on the process and it wants the NEC to take the lead to rectify them. They want a harmonized information flow on the process so that citizens are not confused.
They also noted that the date for the registration exercise has been postponed twice, from October 2016 to December 2016 and now to February 2017, raising concerns of lack of preparation.
“This signals an indication of unpreparedness and therefore NEW calls on government who has taken 100% responsibility to fund the exercise, to honour this commitment in order to ensure the voter registration is done in time respecting the constitutional provision.”
Sierra Leone’s Constitution requires that the final voter register must be ready six months before elections.
A spokesman for the electoral commission wouldn’t comment when contacted by Politico because they didn’t have authorisation to do so.
Copyright (c) Politico 2016
