By Mustapha Sesay and Alpha Daramy Sesay
The National Electoral Commission has insisted on its earlier pronouncement that all political parties must commit themselves to meeting the deadline for submission of complete lists of nominations by tomorrow, Friday.
“Friday 7 September 2012 is the deadline for submission of Political Parties Approved Lists of Candidates for the Local Council Nomination…deadline for the approved lists for Presidential and Parliamentary Elections,” the Commission told journalists in Freetown yesterday.
Meanwhile, the Spokesman of the National Democratic Alliance has questioned the legality of NEC's deadline.
“For NEC to even call for the lists of nominees when the proposed candidature fees have not been approved by parliament is illegal. We have problem with the deadline and everything NEC is doing right now. There was no point for NEC to ask for the list of nominees when the fees have not been approved,” Chernoh Alpha Bah told Politico.
But NEC Chairperson, Christiana Thorpe said in a 6 September press statement that: “This will provide a week for vetting of all lists before the start of nomination on the 12. The 10 and 11 of September will be used to train candidates at District level between 9am and 4pm.”
A NEC press release says ten political parties have already balloted for their nomination days for local council, presidential and parliamentary elections.
The opposition Sierra Leone People’s Party has also complained about the decision by NEC.
“We are concerned with your deadline of 7 September 2012 for the submission of endorsed candidates for local council elections in the absence of the final Voters Register against which we are expected to confirm or disprove the registration of endorsed candidates,” says the party’s chairman, John Oponjo Benjamin in a letter dated 20 August 2012, addressed to Dr Thorpe.
He adds: “We in the SLPP cannot sit with our hands between our legs and allow Christiana Thorpe and NEC to go like this. There are laws in this country. We must make our position known because of the very bad experience we have had in the past with the same Christiana Thorpe.”
Meanwhile, leader of the United Democratic Movement, Mohamed Bangura, and the All People's Congress campaign coordinator, Balogun Koroma, have said that they are on course to submit all lists of nominated and endorsed candidates for the local council elections.
