Ansu Lansana
A Freetown High Court yesterday ruled against the candidates of the main opposition SLPP party in parliamentary elections contested in November last year in their strongholds of Constituencies 05 and 15 in Kailahun and Kenema districts respectively. The party won all seats declared in both districts in those elections.
The ruling effectively means that even though Ansu Lansana got over 11,000 votes in the case of Constituency 05, his main challenger of the governing APC party, Regina Songa, who got less than 2,000 votes, is to be declared the winner, according to the high court judge A. Showers. The ruling can be appealed.
Justice Showers ruled that Lansana had breached an earlier court order of 16 November 2012, on the eve of the election, "by holding himself out as the candidate for SLPP...while the action herein was being heard".
He also ruled that the SLPP, NEC and the PPRC "breached the injunction granted by this court by putting forward and/or accepting the 1st Defendant herein as the candidate for the SLPP..."
The judge then ordered NEC "to nullify all votes cast" in favour of Lansana and to "announce the valid results" of the election.
In the case of constituency 15 the SLPP candidate Afiju Kanja who got over 9,000 of the votes is to have his ballots nullified and the APC candidate Leonard Fofana who got around 4,000 votes and came second will eventually be announce dthe winner.
Both matters followed petitions by former members of the SLPP party one of whom has since declared for the ruling APC party, saying the SLPP candidates were ineligible to have contested because of some internal party disagreement and wrangling. Interestingly the court dismissed the case against the plaintiff raising questions as to why the case against the men could have been dismissed yet the wish of the plaintiff granted.
Politically this means that the ruling APC party now has the crucial two-thirds majority with Paramount Chief Members of Parliament almost naturally supporting the ruling party.
There has been no official reaction from the SLPP to the ruling.
(C) Politico 26/11/13
