By Zainab Joaque
The National Electoral Commission has released figures of people who have registered to vote in next year's general elections. At the end of the first phase of the four-phased electoral process, NEC says total of 616,152 voters, reflecting 70% of the projected figure for this stage, had registered. It says captured registrations by region are as follows: East-107, 880, North-209,577, South-140,415 and Western rural and Urban-158,280. The Chief Electoral Commissioner, Christiana Thorpe however told a press conference yesterday that they were yet to receive complete reports from all centres. The governing APC party draw the bulk of their votes from the north-west while the main opposition SLPP draw theirs from the south-east.
Christiana Thorpe also warned that the November 17, 2012 Presidential and Parliamentary elections must be credible something she says starts now with the ongoing voter registration.
“Whatever harm or damage being done needs to be addressed now, we will not wait for November to come and start righting the wrongs of the process” she said, adding that the process needed to be free and fair henceforth if the country was to have credible elections in November.
Thorpe highlighted the commission’s concerns on multiple registration by certain individuals which she said were reported in seven districts namely Kailahun and Kenema in the east, Moyamba in the south, Bombali and Port Loko in the north and the Western Rural and Urban. She said suspects were in police custody pending investigations.
She also spoke of parallel registration which she said was reported in all 14 electoral districts with documentary evidence from Koinadugu, Pujehun, Kenema and Western Urban districts with the commission.
“People have right to their privacy and confidentiality; and when they come to register, that puts them within the precinct of the Commission” she said, adding “We have the moral obligation to protect those rights, so if people go and collect their forms from them just because they are illiterate and copy their information of which we have no knowledge, who is going to use that data and for what” Dr. Thorpe questioned. She referred to this as an “abuse” of the human rights before issuing a stern warning to political parties to desist from forthwith.
