The main opposition All Peoples Congress (APC) party are still trying to figure out why the Electoral Commission for Sierra Leone (ECSL) is apparently allowing itself to be tainted as an institution nursing the cleavage that is being amended in the hierarchy of the party’s Interim Transitional Governance Committee (ITGC).
This consideration is conceived in a recent letter addressed to the Chairman of the ECSL Alfred Peter Conteh by the Secretariat of the ITGC.
According to the letter dated 6 September 2022, the interim secretary Hon. Abdul Kargbo and other members of the ITGC have raised an objection to the ECSL’s “dealing with Interim Chairmen Unilaterally Appointed by Alfred Peter Conteh”, who is chairman of the ITGC.
“With reference to the above subject matter, the undersigned members of the All Peoples Congress (APC) Interim Transitional Governance Committee (ITGC), hereby register our objection to the Electoral Commission for Sierra Leone (ECSL)’s decision to deal solely with Alfred Peter Conteh’s illegally appointed Interim District Chairman regarding the monitoring of the ongoing voter registration process.”
The objection letter to the EC of the ECSL recounted how the ITGC was born and the legs it stands on in order to give clear premises for their objection to the ECSL’s dealing with interim chairmen unilaterally appointed by the committee’s chairman. The letter also quotes the precise Orders given by the court as to how the committee should roll out or exercise its powers and decisions.
It states: “As you are aware, the ITGC was established pursuant to the Judgement of Hon Justice Adrian Fisher dated 28th April 2022. In the said judgment, the Committee is charged with the responsibility to man the overall affairs of the party until the first National Delegates Conference. In discharging its duties, the committee is guided explicitly by Paragraph 90(10)(6) of the Orders, which specifically spells out how every decision is taken. The paragraph states thus:
“In order to achieve unity within the party, decisions of the ITGC shall be by simple majority’.”
This provision, the letter of objection states, was further affirmed by the Political Parties Registration Commission (PPRC) in an Advisory Statement to the ITGC dated 5 August 2022, “clearly indicating that the quorum for each meeting shall not be less than eleven of its 21 members”.
The PPRC advice, the concerned ITGC members went on, “is premised” on the fact that Hon Justice Adrian Fisher was “quite unequivocal when he said all decisions of the ITGC shall be by a simple majority”.
Hence the letter declares: “We wish to state that Alfred Peter Conteh appointed the referred Interim District Chairmen without our approval, as directed by the Hon. Justice Fisher’s Judgment. It violates both Paragraph 90(10)(6) of the Court Orders of Hon Justice Adrian Fisher J. of 28th April 2022 and Article 55(b) of the Party’s March 2022 Constitution, as well as in blatant disregard for the PPRC Advisory. For ease of reference, article 55(b) provides as follows:
‘“The Party officers at the Constituency, District, Regional (including Diaspora) levels shall be elected at their respective conventions’.”
The decision of the ECSL to deal with the unilaterally appointed interim district chairmen of the ITGC’s chair could be ascribed as a ploy to destroy the fragile unity that is being incubated by the APC party.
It would be recalled that it was few days ago that the ITGC issued a press release stating that “the standoff within the committee has been amicably resolved’ and that “the peace and reconciliation was struck through the mediation of the APC Peace Facilitators, Senior Party Stakeholders and the Big Six”. Hence anything that would threaten that healing process would be frowned at by a majority of the party’s rank and file as well as its grassroots members and supporters.
Therefore, the letter states further: “Voter registration is a significant activity in the electoral cycle; therefore, the effective participation of a major political party like the APC is vital to enhance the credibility of the process. We would therefore like the ECSL to note that the ITGC has no interim District Chairman in its administrative hierarchy. The decision of the ECSL to deal with Alfred Peter Conteh and his unilaterally appointed Interim District Chairmen has not only led to the refusal of trained APC party [agents] entry into most Registration Centres across the country to observe the process but also brought unknown persons serving as APC Party Agents in some Registration Centres nationwide. Therefore this calls into question the credibility of the ongoing registration process.”
Given the above, the objection letter of the aggrieved ITGC members states: “We request that the ECSL contacts not just Alfred Peter Conteh but also Hon. Abdul Kargbo, Secretary and Head of Secretariat of the ITGC, on +23276121211 or kargboab@qmail.com regarding election-related activities.
“We further call on the ECSL to disregard all such persons parading as Interim District Chairmen forthwith and to quickly revisit the accreditation of APC Party agents to correct this anomaly. We count on your understanding and cooperation.”
