Leader of the Opposition in the House of Parliament of Sierra Leone on Wednesday 22 September 2022 urged the Electoral Commission for Sierra Leone to inspire credibility and public confidence in the continuing voter registration process.
Hon. Chernor Ramadan Maju Bah who also doubles as the Leader of the main opposition All People’s Congress (APC) in the House, made the call in a post shared on his official Twitter page.
“EC-SL, on 19/09/22, released registration figures that are regional totals instead of figures by centers. Again, I urge the ECSL to inspire credibility and public confidence in the process by breaking the figures into centres,” charged Hon Bah.
The Opposition leader raised the concerns following receipts of series of complaints of irregularities surrounding the First Phase of the voter registration process, during which hundreds of probable first-time voters were denied rights to register in certain areas in the country by ECSL workers. Also among key issues that prompted Hon. Bah’s concerns are those that have to do with the failure of ECSL to make available the remaining twenty per cent centres that registered voters since the start of the process, and has continued to encourage Sierra Leoneans to register.
Over the controversial missing 20% of centres whose registered voters are uncounted for, concerns continue to emerge from across the country about the exact whereabouts of the remaining figures, as opposition parties, certain sections of the media and host of local and international election observers are expressing serious concerns about transparency, accountability and the credibility of the process moving forward.
In what appears to be much loss of public confidence in the ECSL, calls for the missing 20% of centres where people registered continue to sound loud and clear in public ears in that supporters and followers of leading opposition political parties want their leaders to keep raising concerns about the fairness of the voter registration.
Similar concerns have also been raised by the Consortium of Progressive Political Parties at a press conference held in Freetown, where Madam Femi Claudius-Cole frowned at the selective manner in which ECSL workers are treating opposition political party representatives at registration centres.
She said in several twits share of her wall, that ECSL has failed the nation by way of disenfranchising probable first-time voters. Madam Claudius-Cole observed that ECSL’s denial of first-time voters the rights to register has a proclivity to kill their voices come June 2023 general election.
