#SierraLeoneDecides: Political parties, state institutions criticized for sabotaging NEC
Sierra Leone’s National Electoral Commission (NEC) has been commended for its consistency in executing duties professionally amidst provocation and potential sabotage of its reputation by political parties and state institutions, the website africanews.com reports.
While presenting its preliminary report in Freetown on Tuesday, the European Union observer mission (EOM) in Sierra Leone called out political parties for ‘publicly calling for peace but privately fuelling a divisive discourse and unwarranted attacks and demands on the NEC’.
‘‘The EOM evaluates that the NEC continued to perform its duties in a professional manner in the preparation of, and during, the run-off election at the time of issuing this Preliminary Statement.’‘
According to the EOM, political parties alleged vote rigging in the first round of the polls without providing any genuine evidence.
The statement added that the detention of electoral officials without charge by the country’s security forces and letters sent to NEC by the police chief and attorney general on the eve of the election could be seen as interference in the constitutionally protected independence of the NEC.
The mission believes that the review of the high court ruling on electoral fraud alleged by a petition sponsored by the ruling party which was deferred to a date after election day by the Supreme Court leaves the electoral outcome open to legal challenges.
EOM in the statement accused political parties of not doing enough to prevent tribal rhetoric and intimidation by their supporters.
Politics in Sierra Leone are mainly dominated by the SLPP and the APC with both parties having have ruled alternatively since independence from Britain in 1961.
Sierra Leone is set to have a new president after the March 30 poll. That person will take over from incumbent President Ernest Bai Koroma who was ineligible to run after serving his two successive terms.
