Forum Newspaper henceforward call on Konneh and NEC to allow play by the rules and popular the candidate to win if he/she is duly voted by the electorates.
NEC as a highly professional electoral body under the new management of Konneh, should not jeopardise its credibility for any political party’s interest, not even the governing Sierra Leone People’s Party SLPP, their pay master. The commission must stand tall this time around redeem its reputation and manage these particular process transparently, free and fairly.
That will restore trust and public confidence in the commission’s works once more. NEC must not revert to the old tricks of Alie Conteh when elections were stolen in Tonko Limba, Constituency 110 in the Western Rural District and other places under Conteh’s watchful eyes as NEC Chairman.
No one candidate deserves special treatments than others. It is therefore worthy to remind NEC and Chairman Konneh to be very much mindful of the fact any form of violent interruption of the electoral process be it in the Constituency 110 and in those two provincial polls won’t be tolerated this time around.
NEC and Political Parties Registration Commission (PPRC) well as development partners should thus guide the process through making sure that the conducts of all the three elections are free, fair, peaceful and very much transparent in the good spirits of democratic principles.
It could be that Constituency 110 elections have been held in 2018 and won by Hon. Davies. It was petitioned in 2019, and it was rescheduled, held but results were never declared nor a winner by the elections commission. Rather it was declared null and void especially when it was noticed that the main opposition All People’s Congress APC candidate, Hon. Kadi Davies won the by-elections.
The other elections scheduled to be held in the North and in the South are equally expected to be done free, fairly and transparent manners with peace.
As test cases, NEC as the referee of these contests should therefore create the level playing field for all political parties and their candidates ensuring that the right procedures are duly observed in the conducts of these electoral processes, which will come a long way in restoring public confidence in the elections body once more.
