By Kemo Cham
The two main political parties that contested last weekend’s by-election in Constituency 110 have both claimed victory, despite the cancellation of the poll by the electoral National Electoral Commission (NEC).
The governing Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) and their main rivals the All Peoples Congress (APC) both claimed that their candidates won, in statements they released following the cancellation.
The election which was held on Saturday August 24 pitted APC’s Kadie Davies against SLPP’s Josephine Jackson. A third contender, Ibrahim Kabba, ran on the ticket of the National Grand Coalition (NGC) while Femi Claudius-Cole was on the ballot for the Unity Party.
The poll the run-up to which was characterized by violence was controversially cancelled by NEC which cited violence in one polling center which it said made it impossible to get a conclusive result. A NEC statement announcing the cancellation says a crucial seven percent of the votes could not be collated because a center with 10 polling stations was attacked and voting materials could not be accounted for.
APC says NEC has no authority to cancel the entire results of the election in the first place.
“The constitution doesn’t give N’fa Allie the authority to nullify any election. It only gives him the authority to nullify the results of a particular polling station or center,” said Mohamed Kamara, Alias Pope, referring to the head of NEC, Mohamed N’fa Allie Conteh.
“We got a victory and that victory must be given to us,” Kamara, a member of a temporary committee set up to speak for the APC, added in a telephone interview. He said the party was doing all in its power to get the Commission to do the right thing and appealed to the international community and other moral guarantors of Sierra Leone’s democracy to intervene and ensure that NEC respected the electoral laws.
In a statement on Monday, SLPP accused APC of provoking the violence, citing the run up to the poll when its candidate was attacked, her car torched and other property destroyed.
It said that on election day everything went on smoothly until APC supporters attempted to disrupt the smooth flow of proceedings at or around Angola Town, the flashpoint of the violence.
“In the melee that the APC ignited, huge sections of votes could not be accounted for. But after tallying of accessed results by our party, our candidate Josephine Jackson clearly won the elections,” the statement said.
SLPP added that it is studying the decision by NEC and will come up with a position later.
“The party is critically examining the decision by NEC to cancel the entire election and suggested rerun. We are convinced that our candidate should be declared winner of the elections, after all compiled results by our party show her victory. We also hold the view that the APC votes should have been annulled because of their planned and carefully executed electoral fraud,” the statement signed by the party’s National Secretary General says.
A statement by the US embassy, the European Union and the UK and Irish embassies in Freetown has expressed “concern” over the development. They called for dialogue among political leaders to ensure peaceful voting. They also urged the institutions dealing with the election to ensure trust in the process by the citizenry.
The election was necessitated by another controversial high court ruling in May which nullified the victory of Ms Davies in last year’s general elections and ordered a rerun. Those decisions by two Freetown high court judges meant nine APC seats went to the SLPP shifting the balance of power in the House, with the ruling party now having 58 seats and the APC 56, with three pending by-elections one of which was as a result of the death of an APC MP in Koinadugu.
From the outset the contest had been a two-horse race in an area considered an APC stronghold.
The APC accused the police and the governing party of unleashing violence on their members both on Election Day and in the run-up to the polls.
APC’s Pope Kamara told Politico that they had evidence to substantiate their victory claim. Like the press statement, he named an SLPP militant that goes by the name of Arata (Rat) for allegedly mobilizing thugs to wreak havoc on their supporters. He cited social media videos of Arata on a vehicle full of “thugs”.
The APC spokesman said that when the party called the attention of the police, “instead of acting accordingly they arrested our own members”.
Kamara said scores of their members were arrested and in police custody.
The police would not comment when contacted by Politico. Their spokesman, Superintendent Brima Karama, said they intended to provide answers to all the questions in a press conference scheduled for later in the week.
NEC’s spokesman, Albert Massaquoi, didn’t respond to a telephone call or text message requesting for comments.
The electoral body has three pending by-elections, including the one in Constituency 110, another in Falaba District also as a result of a court order, and in Koinadugu where the sitting MP died.
They are highly contentious in that they hold the key to who controls the current parliament. Presently the SLPP has 58 seats, against APC’s 56 seats. SLPP must win at least one of them to maintain its slim lead in the House.
The National Elections Watch (NEW), which monitored the electoral process, in a statement on Monday condemned the NEC’s decision to cancel Saturday’s vote. The organization of civil society groups also called for immediate de-escalation of violence, calling for the speedy investigations of incidents of violence perpetrated during the weekend bye-election.
© 2019 Politico Online
