By Sorie Ibrahim Fofanh
The Electoral Commission for Sierra Leone (ECSL) has in a press statement dated on 3rd November acknowledged receipt of forty-five petition cases from candidates in the just concluded village head election.
“The commission received a total of 45 petitions from candidates who participated in the just concluded village head elections. The Commission has however reviewed the petitions and has dismissed 42 because they lack sufficient evidence for the results to be overturned for possible re-run,” part of the release reads.
The release further notes that there would be a re-run of elections in Bonga Wharf and No. 2 River, while investigations continue on the petitions they have received from Samuel Town. It was also stated that voting would continue on the 4th of November in one of the two centers in which votes were not cast in Sussex Village due to misplacement of the center.
Deputy Director of Media and Communications at ECSL, Christopher A.A. Jones could not confirm to Politico the date for the said re-run elections,but said it will be communicated to the public in due course.
Analyzing the conduct of the village head elections, the Commission stated in its release that the Sierra Leone Police (SLP) provided security in all the polling centers, and that candidate’s agents, Civil Society Groups and the Media were accredited to observe the said elections. The release goes on to say: “The elections were largely peaceful with minimal isolated cases of violence.
Announcing the elections’ results, the ECSL Commissioner for Western Region, Zainab Umu Moseray said that six hundred forty-seven (647) polling stations' results were entered into their database; representing 96.85% of all polling stations in the eighty-four (84) villages where the elections were conducted.
On Saturday 28th of August, 2023, the ECSL conducted village head elections for eighty-eight (88) out of one hundred and twenty-one (121) villages in the Western Rural District of Sierra Leone.
Of the total 121 villages for which candidate nominations were declared by the ECSL, thirty-three (33) villages were declared uncontested after nominations, making it possible for 88 villages to present two hundred, and seventy candidates to contest the said elections.
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