The European Union Election Observation Mission (EUEOM) in its preliminary statement dated 26 June 2023 titled: ‘Voters’ Commitment to a Democratic Process Challenged by Violence and Lack of Transparency at Critical Stages of Elections, has exposed the Electoral Commission for Sierra Leone (ECSL) lack of transparency in the tabulation of results in its preliminary statement.
The EUEOM preliminary statement lay bare ECSL lack of communications and transparency, which the mission said to a large extent affected confidence in the integrity and credibility of the entire electioneering process.
The statement furthered that the ECSL compose of a chairman and a National Returning Officer, Mohamed K. Konneh and five commissioners, each of them representing East, North, South, West and Northwest of the country respectively.
The EUEOM statement notes that the ECSL received timely disbursement of election funding and appeared operationally prepared, yet delays, errors and omission in delivery of sensitive materials occurred on election day.
“Several delays and shortcomings occurred at key stages of the electoral process and were not comprehensively explained to the public, as a result reduced confidence in the process,” EUEOM statement reads.
It however cited important steps in the voter registration process; final candidates’ lists for parliamentary elections published late and contained numerous errors.
According to the EUEOM statement made mentioned of late release of tallying and results certification procedures which also poses threat to the elections.
The statement further nailed the ECSL for its illegitimate refusal to conduct a stress – test or a nationwide mock exercise of the result management system, which was not conducted as there was no public information on the security safeguards of the results management. That, the EUEOM statement noted could have as a measure defused political tensions.
“The ECSL worked to address problematic issues at different stages of the electoral process. ECSL’s mitigation measures like recapturing of missing voters, registration data after the exhibition of provisional list, providing special certificates of voters whose photos were missing on their cards and briefing of observers and political parties on polling and counting procedures, however, steps taken were not accompanied by a clear and comprehensive public outreach by providing detailed and timely public information on those issues, the ECSL would have mitigated against distrust and enhanced certainty and institutional transparency,” the statement reads.
In the area of vote counting and tabulation, the EUEOM statement disclosed that the peaceful and orderly conduct of polls were marred by late openings, violence and intimidation in several districts.
“The longest delays were reported in Kono and Western Urban, Freetown, the EUEOM noted, negatively assessed the opening in 19 out of 43 polling stations observed in all 16 districts,” the statement notes.
The EUEMO statement noted essential materials missing in 21 polling stations observed mainly material transfer and result and reconciliation forms.
