By Nasratu Kargbo
The 30% minimum seats for female parliamentarians will not be achieved, according to Institution of Governance Reform’s (IGR) SierraPoll survey.
IGR’s Executive Director, Andrew Lavali on 31st May 2022 at the launch of the Sierra Poll said if necessary actions are not taken from now to the election date, the sixth parliament will get less than 30% women representation.
Lavali explained that there will be more women as compared to the last parliament, stating that based on their survey, women will get 26% of the parliamentary seats.
He added that out of the fourteen paramount chiefs they only have one woman and that their forecast predicts thirty- eight women, explaining that when both the PC MP and the ordinary MPs numbers were calculated and translated to percentage, they found out that the country will fall short by 4%.
Speaking on the purpose of the survey, Lavali said they did the prediction on Sierra Leone’s electoral map to see the number of women that will be in parliament, composition of the next parliament, the percentage of the different parties in parliament, local councils and the parties that will be controlling the different councils.
He explained that the essence of the survey is to help with improving the election’s integrity and accuracy, adding that they want to also manage citizens’ expectations after the elections.
When asked why they did not conduct a survey to predict who will become the next president, Lavali said they chose to focus on parliamentary and local council.
Responding to whether the polls reflect the views of Sierra Leoneans considering there are over three million registered voters, Lavali said they did random sampling, explaining that there is a 2% margin of error, meaning the results will be 2% plus or minus what is predicted.
Research and Policy Director of IGR and President of 50/50 Group Professor Fredline M’Cormack-Hale said even though they had advocated for women to be positioned first or second on the list, many placed women third on the list which is the reason why most districts have less women.
“This is the result, when women have not been placed first on the list. We are going to fall short, more likely on the 30%”, she said.
M’Cormack-Hale explained that the projections are in relation to their polls,on if the elections were to be held tomorrow, and which was based on what the respondents said about the PR system and the number of seats allocated per region.
She was quick to note that things could change, saying citizens might have a rethink based on parties’ campaign, manifestoes and other issues.
According to the Sierra Poll survey report dated 29th May 2023, Western Area Urban will be the districts with highest number of seats for women with five seats. Western Area Urban is expected to be closely followed by Kailahun which is expected to get four seats whilst Bo will be third with three or four seats depending on the votes on that end. The Poll shows that for areas like Falaba and Koinadugu, there will be no female representative in those areas.
“About 60% of the women MPs are predicted to be from the SLPP” a part reads. It shows that APC will have fifteen, whilst SLPP will have twenty-two or twenty-three female MPs.
A face-to-face interview was conducted with two thousand four hundred and forty-eight respondents across the country from 20th to 26th May 2023.
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