It is quite interesting and even insulting hearing or learning about calls to postpone the 2023 general elections on the altar of the Covid-19 challenge in Sierra Leone.
Those making these calls are hiding behind their fingers to mislead the people of the country, as they are trying to buy into the hands of the powers that be in order to hatch the grand plan of postponing the general and presidential elections slated for 2023.
Such a move at this point in time would definitely jeopardise the peace, tranquillity and good democratic credentials this country presently enjoys.
We think the Covid-19 pandemic has not posed that much of a real obstacle to holding or conducting the upcoming general and presidential elections in 2023.
Attempting to do such a thing at this stage of our national development is tantamount to destroying our hard-earned applauded democratic records over the last 10 to 20 years. This is the very reason Madam Marcella Samba Sesay, who is the executive director of one of the leading civil society organisations in this country – Campaign for Good Governance (CGG) – sent out a post on social media outrightly condemning such a move, saying: “Only counterfeit democracies will postpone elections due to Covid-19. It is not a humanly impossible situation. Wear masks, (observe) social distance, get vaccinated and in an election, let the Electoral Commission develop a Covid-19 strategy and ensure robust compliance. Recruit and train queue controllers, use open spaces as polling places, deploy wash stations, towels and hand sanitizers. Demobilize violent groups, and thugs. Democracy must not be postponed due to Covid-19.”
Indeed, the CGG executive director is correct that if it were only for the Covid-19 pandemic, the electoral commission should be competent enough to put in place measures that would take care of the Covid-19 fears. Even international bodies such as the African Union and the European Union in Sierra Leone have stated their position that there shouldn’t be need for election postponement because of Covid-19 pandemic. The African Union-AU had even trained election management teams across the continent to monitor Covid-19 and ensure adequate and appropriate measures are put in place to tackle the spread of the disease and to allow for elections to be conducted across African countries.
Why should Sierra Leone try to dodge such good measures so as to use Covid-19 as a pretext to postpone or not hold national and presidential elections? There should be no excuse: elections in Sierra Leone must be held as planned as long as the nation is sure that there is peace, tranquillity and safe health condition in the country.
Trying to do otherwise would also be a serious breach of the laws of the land that call for general and presidential elections to be held every five years. It would be a violation of the rights of the electorate and people of this country.
We should try to avoid bad political games in this country and play the rules of the game accordingly. The former President Ernest Bai Koroma came out openly and denounced some people among his party supporters who initiated a plan to get the former president violate the national constitution and go in for third term in office, when the constitution says otherwise. Some people decided to use the media to frame and prime the issue so as to win the hearts and minds of the people of Sierra Leone. But that didn’t work; as a lot of people led by some civil society organisations and members of the fourth estate condemned and denounced the plan and ensue it was obviated.
Today we are about to see a smack of similar trend taking place in the era of the President Julius Maada Bio-Sierra Leone People’s Party-led government; this time around they are calling or pushing for election postponement. This election postponement plan that is about to be hatched wouldn’t work as the people of this country are today wide awake and ready to bat against any ill-conceived plan to thwart their onward progress to go to the polls to exercise their democratic right in due time and to ensure they are able to vote in their choice of representatives, leader and government. They would not allow anything to unscrupulously derail that right of theirs.
We understand that the task of trying to postpone the 2023 elections is in the hands of some civil society organisations that seem to be good at playing with the hearts and minds of the people of this country. The very CSOs intend to carry out their game of manufacturing consent and mischief together with some media organisations and propagandists in and out of this country. That won’t be allowed. And they should know that it won’t be allowed. They better back down and play the political game accordingly. We are watching.
The Forum newspaper says a word for the wise is enough.
