By Mabinty M. Kamara
Sierra Leone’s election observation body, the National Elections Watch NEW, has commended the National Electoral Commission NEC for the peaceful conduct of constituency 010 by-election and that of ward 012, in Kailahun, eastern Sierra Leone.
The campaign process of the parliamentary by-election won by the ruling Sierra Leone Peoples Party SLPP was marred by political violence, leading to the death of a teenage boy, Foday Morie, described as a supporter of an independent candidate, Ibrahim Sylvester Jusu Hengela. He accused supporters of the SLPP candidate of killing Morie in Constituency 010 and and for carrying out several other reported incidences of destruction and intimidation.
However, according to the NEW report on the elections, the peaceful conduct of the exercise on polling day was largely due to stakeholder engagements by various institutions and organizations including NEC and Political Parties Registration Commission (PPRC), the Sierra Leone Police (SLP) represented by the Inspector General of Police, the Republic of Sierra Leone Armed Forces (RSLAF), National Commission for Democracy (NCD), Office of National Security (ONS), Human Rights Commission Sierra Leone (HRCSL), Local Authorities and the candidates and their supporters.
“During these engagements, all players and stakeholders made commitments for a peaceful electoral environment. In addition to these engagements, NEW conducted a pre-election assessment and shared its findings with all Election Management Bodies (EMBs) and other relevant stakeholders,” its reads.
The statement noted that most of the polling stations in both Constituency 010 and Ward 012 opened on time. Political party and Independent candidate’s agents were present in all the polling stations. NEC staff in the polling stations was mainly youth and there were more men than women. Police presence was visible in all polling centres with hand-washing and face masks compliance also visible in almost all polling stations. But there were no thermometers in most of the polling stations to test the temperature of voters in Constituency 010 whilst thermometers were observed in all polling stations in Ward 012.
The Voter turnout according to the report was relatively high at 56.9% and 55.6% in Constituency 010 and Ward 012 respectively.
British High Commission, Election Conflict Prevention and Mediation Group, the media and the Chief Electoral Commissioner, NEC Commissioner for the Eastern Region, and other senior NEC officials were all present.
Provisional results signed by the Regional returning officer, Eastern region, Commissioner Marian Sia Nyuma Moijueh indicate that Zainab Kama Brima took over 70% of the votes, followed by an independent candidate Ibrahim Sylvester Jusu Hengela with 21% and the APC’s John Allieu with 8%.
The elections were conducted on Saturday 27th February 2021.
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