By Alimatu Jalloh
Tuesday, July 25, 2023, marks the third sitting of the Sixth Parliament of Siera Leone to which a total of 149 Members have been duly elected by the citizens in the election held on June 24, 2023.
Fifty-three elected members of Parliament from the main opposition All People’s Congress (APC), apart from Hon. Mohamed Bangura, have boycotted all three sittings including their swearing-in ceremony which was held in July 13.
APC won 54 out of 149 seats, according to results announced by the electoral commission which the opposition disputes.
The APC has demanded the resignation of the election commission chief and a rerun of the vote within six months.
President Julius Maada Bio won with 56.17% of the vote compared to 41% for Samura Kamara of the APC.
APC said it will not take part in any level of governance in the country, from Parliament to local councils, due to what it calls “fraudulent results” of the June 24 elections.
The Speaker of Parliament, Rt. Hon. Dr. Abass Chernor Bundu has appealed to the 53 APC MPs not to sit idly by and allow the present stalemate in their party to persist. “If they do, the result could be devastating and detrimental to their party and ultimately to the country as a whole as well as to our democratic polity,” he said in an announcement in Parliament on Tuesday.
The speaker said another darkness is looming on the horizon, and “this is why I want today to appeal to all those eminent statesmen of the APC Party to rise up and liberate their Party from the clutches of despotism and authoritarianism before it is dragged again to the precipice of destruction and extinction.”
“Walk-outs and boycotts are political tools of yesteryears; they no longer have value and relevance, and they are no longer fit for purpose in this 21st Century of participatory democracy. The truth of the matter is palpably simple. If you withdraw yourself from participating in the process of decision-making, then you should not be angry when others who agree to participate decide for you and your destiny,” he said.
Rt. Hon. Dr. Chernor Bundu said that the reality of the world in which we live today has changed. He said that the new reality is clearly prescribed in the provisions of paragraph (e) of subsection (1) of Section 77 of the Constitution of Sierra Leone (Act No. 6 of 1991). “That provision states that and I quote: ‘A Member of Parliament shall vacate his seat in Parliament if he is absent from sittings of Parliament for such period and in such circumstances as may be prescribed in the rules of procedure of Parliament’.”
He said, that provision is further amplified in parliamentary Standing Orders 77 (2)(a) of the Standing Orders of Parliament which states: “Any member who, without good cause, during any session, is absent from the sittings of Parliament on a number of days amounting to an aggregate period of 30 days shall vacate his seat”.
He appealed to the elected Members of Parliament of the APC to see reason and to step up and in consonance with their sense of national duty to come and take their seats in the Chamber of Parliament to which they have been rightly and properly elected to represent their people “before it is too late”.