By Alusine Sesay
President Dr Julius Maada Bio on Wednesday extended the timeline for the presentation of the Independent Cross-Party Committee on Electoral Systems and Management Bodies Review report, at a formal handing over ceremony of a joint statement by the Government of Sierra Leone and the All People’s Congress, APC.
Sierra Leone’s Tripartite Committee, established to review the country’s electoral systems following the controversial June 2023 presidential polls, was supposed to submit its report past Wednesday. But this has been delayed apparently on account of APC’s decision to suspend its participation in the Committee. The APC suspended it participation after the Electoral Commission Sierra Leone (ECSL) refused to respond to its letter seeking clarification why there were over voting in some polling stations.
The APC says it has resumed its participation in the Tripartite Committee despite ongoing challenges and a lack of cooperation from the SLPP government and the ECSL.
This decision comes after the ECOWAS, African Union and United Nations mediators engaged the representatives of the party in Freetown to ensure presentation of the final report.
The President Bio expressed appreciation to the committee members, international partners, and moral guarantors, noting that there is every reason for him and every Sierra Leonean to be optimistic and happy. He said the country was coming of age, and so was democracy, which was a process that could develop over time.
President Bio said every generation of leaders would make their own contributions, stating that what they were doing today — the government and the Tripartite Committee members — was intentional and that they were making their contribution to the evolution of democracy in Sierra Leone.
He thanked the leadership of the two political parties, development partners, and the Ambassadors of the United States, United Kingdom and the European Union for working intimately from the back to make sure that they provided the guard race to keep the process within terms of reference.
“This is not the final day, inasmuch as we are optimistic as a nation. Ladies and gentlemen, you still have some work to do, and I am going to tap you on the back and encourage you to go back and come as quickly as possible with a mission-accomplished report,” President Bio said.
“After considerable progress has been made, I want to thank all of you for the progress, as many issues have been trashed. Despite some of them being very contentious, with time, you will be able to trash them and come back with a final word. As I receive this joint communiqué, I want to send you back with a vote of thanks and encourage you to continue doing what you have been doing.”
“Since both the SLPP and APC have been grumbling about the ECSL and its processes, for me, my legacy will be, why don’t we deal with the institution by reforming it and putting all the challenges together from the point of view of the parties and deal with it so that future generations of leaders will not get out of hand over this?”.
The 2023 standard-bearer of the APC, Dr Samura Mathew Wilson Kamara acknowledged in his statement, on behalf of the APC party, that “this is the second time President Bio is chairing a meeting that has to do with cross-party initiatives on addressing, correcting, and sanitising institutions that are doing wrongs with the electoral system in the hope of building a strong democracy”.
He described the engagement as history in the making, pointing out that it was the first time two leading political parties, with strong rivalries and some disagreements, had agreed to sit at the table. He thanked President Bio for the privilege accorded them, stating that the cross-party initiative was working for Sierra Leone. He noted that it was not supposed to work for any individual, which was why all those institutions embedded in the agreement for national unity were meant to provide collective responsibility for the country.
Dr Kamara said he believed, just like President Bio did, that electoral wrongs if not corrected would not build democracy, and the failure not to build democracy would mean not practising the right politics of development. He confirmed that significant progress had been made under the item where they were building a new era of hope for Sierra Leone with entrenched political stability to foster economic stability.
“I want to reiterate and reaffirm the commitment of the All Peoples Congress to this initiative to ensure that the fullness of time and the true spirit of the agreement for national unity are achieved. This is an agreement for salvaging the soul of Sierra Leone. We are one family, irrespective of where you come from,” Dr Samura Kamara assured.
The ECOWAS-AU-UNOWAS Mission lead, former Vice President of The Gambia, Her Excellency Fatoumata Jallow-Tambajang, said the country had achieved a milestone in its democratic history, pointing out that nothing was difficult in life, and that all people needed was dialogue. She called on both the government and the APC party to ignore politics, regional issues, and tribes and use Sierra Leone as an agenda item for national development.