Sources from the international community have intimated FORUM that the ruling party government have been asked to produce its own proof of how it won the 2023 presidential elections. The announced presidential election win by the chief electoral commission of Sierra Leone that named the incumbent candidate, Julius Maada Bio, as the winner was widely discredited and rejected.
The rejection of the result by the main opposition All Peoples Congress (APC), the elections observers and the international community led to an APC boycott of the government in the House of Parliament and the city and town councils across the country.
Our sources informed this medium that the ruling party government has been asked to produce evidence in the form of Result Reconciliation Forms (RRFs) that their polling agents tallied from the polling stations across the country.
Since the political stalemate emanating from the discredited presidential election, the APC, according to the party’s leader Dr Samura Kamara has provided evidence in the form of verifiable Results Reconciliation Forms (RRFs) from 70.2 per cent of polling stations nationwide, signed by ECSL officials, party agents and observers.
The RRFs showed that Dr. Samura Kamara had a commanding lead with 57.15 per cent of the votes, making it impossible for the SLPP candidate to win at the first ballot. The APC has also been able to demonstrate the gross inconsistencies and mathematical impossibilities in ECSL’s partial 60 per cent and final 100 per cent announced presidential results. It is noteworthy that this only confirmed reports and skepticism by local and international elections observers.
On the other hand the electoral commission of Sierra Leone, despite repeated calls from the APC, the elections observers and even the Tripartite Committee has been unable to produce any credible evidence of the numbers they assigned to all candidates in the elections. Equally alarming is the fact that the SLPP party, which was declared the winner, has also failed to provide any credible evidence to support the votes they were assigned. It is indeed strange that both the elections management body and the party declared as winners cannot produce tangible evidence to support their claims. This coincidence is too significant to ignore.
In their attempt to give a verdict on the presidential election and on the tripartite process, FORUM was informed that the United Nations representative, the female Australian judge and most importantly the regional ECOWAS have demanded that the SLPP produce evidence of the votes the ECSL chief commissioner assigned to them from his tallying of the votes from across the country.
Although the president has been heading the government our sources say that ‘his time at the head is shaky and untenable’. The men averred that it is possible that either the country will see for the first time in its electoral history a rerun of a presidential election or a call for early presidential election or that based on the verification of the voting record that shows that Dr Samura Kamara had won the vote for the president to vacate the Office of the President for the actual winner. The sources informed this medium that the end of the tripartite process, those who played a role in the manipulation of the voting record will have their day in the court of law.
It must be recalled that the ruling SLPP had party agents and its observers at all polling stations from across the country. Meanwhile the APC was unable to have its agents at all the stations due to political intimidation from SLPP party agents and gangsters mainly in SLPP strongholds that prevented the APC from having agents at such locations. The APC was only able to get its RRFs from only 70.2 per cent of the polling stations from across the country.
As the people of Sierra Leone continue to wait on the verdict from the international community on who actually won the June 2023 presidential election, there are backroom meetings and demands being made of the ruling party that point to a clarification of the announced presidential elections aimed at showing justifiable proof of who the actual winner of the election is.
This medium has been informed that the decision by the international community demanding the ruling SLPP to produce its RRFs is a means of bypassing the electoral commission that has been insistent that they are not under any legal obligation to produce the demanded disaggregated voting data from across the country.
‘The ball is now in the court of the SLPP to show proof of how they won the elections. We must understand that the international community that we are talking about is not the government of Sierra Leone or the electoral commission so they cannot announce any election result. So we are not going to see press conferences or press releases from them. What we will hear from them is a verdict that will be in their report after viewing the voting record. The only other credible source to get such RRFs from besides the ECSL, the APC and international elections observers is from the SLPP. Although they have been very quiet on the presidential election result, we are sure that there is no way they can prove that President Maada Bio won the elections on first ballot. The demand from ECOWAS and the UN representative to the Tripartite Committee is a great victory for Dr Samura Kamara as it will finally vindicate him and quiet all those in the APC that have been trying to derail his fight by acquiescing to the ruling party’s 2028 election agenda, which actually also say that they endorse his claim of winning the 2023 elections. So the whole world is now waiting on the SLPP to also produce their RRFs to show how they won the presidential election,’ said our source from the international community.
