Hon. Chernor Ramadan Maju Bah has called on Chief Electoral Commissioner Mohamed Konneh to extend the period of the ongoing voter registration process (VRP) about to end on 4 October.
The Leader of the Opposition in Parliament also called on CEC Konneh to quickly put things aright in the VR process, which has a key part to play in the highly needed multitier public elections in June 2023.
The voter registration process – first and second phases – has been marred by all sorts of irregularities and lawlessness to the point that social media is showing footages of people including non-Sierra Leoneans and the underage in neighboring countries giving testimonies of how they had been secretly registered as voters by ECSL staff who are alleged to have set up voting centres in such countries as Liberia to carry out the VR fraud.
In a letter to the Chief Electoral Commissioner, Hon. Bah states: “In the interest of your credibility, and that of the Commission’s, I kindly request you to do the following:
“Break down the registration figures by center and make them available to political parties and the public; ensure that ALL eligible, including First Time Voters, are accorded their constitutional right to participate in this process as provided for by the Public Election Act; decisively and satisfactorily address any political interference with the process; and extend the registration process, to adequately compensate for the time lost.”
Hon. Maju recounted several challenges and irregularities that soiled the conduct of the first phase of the two-part voter registration process billed to run from 3 Sept to 4 Oct 2022.
“As you are aware, the VRP is in its third week, yet some of the challenges still persist, particularly those relating to First Time Voters, who are currently not yet of the voting age but will turn 18 by June 2023.”
He continued: “As I have previously indicated, it is highly imperative for ECSL to lay a solid basis for the June 2023 elections to be credible, inclusive and representative of the people’s will. This should be done by ensuring that this VRP leaves no eligible citizen out in this process.
“Unfortunately, Mr Chief Electoral Commissioner, while some of the initial challenges still persist, new ones are also emerging. They include the Commission’s failure to publish by centers, the figures from the ongoing exercise; political interference with the process at various centers; and intimidation of opposition representatives, community leaders and First Time Voters. The latter is being done by declaring the identification documents of some of the First Time Voters as fake, seizure of such documents, and threatening the owners with police arrest.
“While all of these initial and recent challenges have eaten up a considerable amount of the time stipulated for this process, ECSL’s insistence on publishing the registration figures by region rather than by centers, makes the data unverifiable, undermines the integrity of the register, and creates unnecessary suspicion of some wrongdoing.
“This situation casts a dark cloud over the credibility of this critical electoral process and if not addressed decisively and comprehensively, the Voters Register, which would emerge from this problematic VRP, would have far-reaching ramifications on the credibility, peacefulness and acceptability of the June 2023 elections.”
