Sierra Leone’s Elections Management Bodies (EMBs) consisting of the Electoral Commission Sierra Leone (ECSL), Political Party Regulation Commission (PPRC), Office of National Security (ONS) and the Sierra Leone judiciary has on last Friday 9th June 2023, in the presence of development partners, regional and international observers, political parties’ representatives, the media and Civil Society Organizations drawn from across the country disclosed their preparedness for the upcoming polls.
The National Stakeholders’ conference was organized by IDEA, New Brookfield Hotel, and Freetown.
The conference took the form of speeches and panel discussions by members of the Elections Management Bodies (EMBs) followed by questions and answers session.
Detailed of speeches and panel discussions will be deal with extensively in our future editions.
Keynote Speaker, Dr. Fonkam Azu’u, Former Chairman of the Electoral Commission, Cameroon (ELECAM), for eight years 2009-2017, speaking on best practices for elections preparedness among other things thanked the organizers for inviting him to speak to an all-time topic.
He said the golden role for winning any elections is planning, stating, if you failed to plan than you plan to fail.
He revealed that Fairness, transparency and integrity are the haul marks for the maintenance of peace before and after elections as there are no universal standards for the conduct of elections, simple because, there is no one size fits all as it varies from country to country.
He said the organizers of the conference have done Sierra Leoneans good on information and what has been done by the elections management bodies’ days to the polls.
He continued lack of information or the timeliness of information is most times the lead cause of electoral conflict.
Dr. Azu’u stated that he is a very happy man because the main players of the elections are in front of the stakeholder’s engagement.
“In elections, the EMBs are always between a rock and a hard surface, that is, if things go well the EMBs secure the praise, when it’s went the other way round, blames are squarely shifted on the EMBs.” Dr. Azu’u.
More on the keynote speaker.
