By Umaru Fofana
Before now if you’d mentioned Constituency 110, I couldn’t tell you where it was situated. Such is the natural predilection for infamy that it sticks easily, and brings to retention that which would otherwise be ephemeral. So now I know where Constituency 110 is, in as much the same way as I knew where Constituency 104 was during those infamous elections there all those years ago. How sad!
The events in the constituency situated along the Freetown peninsula leading up to Saturday 24 August 2019 – and on the day itself – belong to the chapter of our history which we had hoped we would never witness again in Sierra Leone.
The otherwise peaceful nature and ambiance of the peninsula which boasts of beautiful sandy beaches along the coastline and the towering mountains was compromised in the last few weeks. All, simply because people were voting in a parliamentary rerun poll. However crucial that seat is – and it is crucial for the balance of power in parliament – it does not warrant our democracy to be attacked as it was in such brutal manner. But who struck the figurative match, who brought the fuel and who stood by while the place burned? These are questions we may never get honest answers to because our public institutions are badly compromised and our citizenry is sucked in interests bordering on tribal, political and material considerations.
That said, I reckon the following: the security forces were apparently compromised against the opposition and therefore failed to act where and when they should have. The two main political parties – APC and SLPP – and their thugs were the biggest culprits. These are two groups who don’t understand bonhomie. And the National Electoral Commission, despite getting everything right by way of organising the poll, let down the nation by canceling the entire result. That was ill-advised!
That singular unprecedented decision by NEC is one with the proclivity to make the country’s future elections inconclusive if implemented. That cancellation was as unnecessary and illogical as it was a travesty. I will justify my position momentarily.
That rerun poll for the election of a representative in parliament for Constituency 110, following a controversial court decision that ordered it, was a damp squib. The lead-up to polling day was characterized, marred if you prefer, by tension and violence. And voting day which usually would be peaceful was also compromised by some political hoodlums.
But the voting day violence was not entirely unexpected. In part because of the violence that had preceded the day, but also because it was a by-election in the sense of it happening “in a single political constituency to fill a vacancy arising during a government's term of office”.
Unfortunately it is the case in Sierra Leone that by-elections are usually a low turnout and violent affair. Most voters stay at home perhaps because they don’t take a parliamentary election as seriously as they do a presidential one. But also because of dissatisfaction against the status quo and their preoccupation to make ends meet, as is often the case. That’s the way it has always been, save when a by-election has been very close to a general election and voters are hyperactive with the stakes much higher.
Sometime during the Ernest Bai Koroma era the local council by-election for the Kono District Council Chairman which Diana Konomanyi won, had a turnout of around 15% - or so. And during a by-election in Tongo Fields the APC party office in the town was torched and nearby houses damaged during violent clashes between supporters of APC and SLPP. The list is long! Very long! Too long!
When a single election is taking place in a ward or constituency, the political parties can afford to concentrate their synergy and resources there. But a nationwide election so stretches the parties both in human and financial resources that they cannot afford to behave the way they behaved in Constituency 110 by deploying their big hitters there. This is why I disagree with fears being expressed in some quarters or by certain individuals that what happened in the botched peninsula election was a dress rehearsal for the general elections in 2023, in terms of violence. By my calculations that is paranoia, because sadly it is not strange.
What is strange is for NEC to cancel the election result because there was violence at 10 polling stations comprising seven percent of the total result of the votes cast. That is balderdash! During a recent by-election for a council seat in Kono which the C4C party retained, doubts were cast over votes at a particular polling centre where there was said to have been violence, despite the fact that those elections were also very closely contested and those votes could have influenced the outcome. The election body cancelled the votes at the affected centre and announced the rest of the results, and declared the winner. So what is different this time around!
During last year’s elections, votes were cancelled at certain polling stations. That did not lead to the nullification of the results in an entire constituency let alone the whole country. It might well have been that those nullified votes were higher than the margin of victory, something NEC has cited as reason for cancelling the election at Constituency 110. It makes no sense to me whatsoever!
Come to think of it, if polls are called off any time there are clashes at a polling centre, our national elections would be as ridiculous as students’ union elections in present day Fourah Bay College – they will never hold or be concluded. Because any time one party thinks it is losing, it causes unrest and the polls are cancelled. There will be an unending cycle of holding elections that never count.
I would say policing was a serious issue on Saturday. There were security checkpoints across the constituency – at least along the main highway. You would have expected that securing the polling stations especially those where intelligence-led information would have identified as potential flashpoints should have been a priority. However much I disagree with NEC’s decision to cancel the result, there would have been reason – however much of a fig leaf that is – to have cancelled. Did voting materials arrive on time? Yes! Did the election staff arrive on time? Yes! Did they conduct the polls with integrity? As far as I have heard and there has been no complaint to the contrary, I would say an emphatic yes! The mistake – and a very significant one – was the cancellation of the results. And I beg to differ with NEC on this one.
© 2019 Politico Online
