FARE THEE WELL, CHRISTIANA
We shall publish our detailed write-up about Christiana’s term in office as NEC boss when her successor is named sometime in 2013. But there are few points we now want to make on the conduct of the last multi-tier elections.
We have published reports from international observer groups on the last elections except the most useless one produced by ECOWAS. Their Chief Observer landed in Freetown only a few hours before the start of voting. Not long after the body of the group had landed to do only-God-knows-what. What did they really observe? And they have this meddlesome former president they send around the sub-region “observing elections”. Babasala has made himself a comedian.
He started in Ivory Coast, he then crossed over to Senegal where he tried to pull Wade from the claws of defeat by putting forward a deal to keep old Wade in office for two more years only and then Macky Sall and others would take over, (Hmmmmmm Baba PAWA NAR POYO?). He was booed at a press conference at the Radison Hotel to “leave the country”. Baba then came to Sierra Leone and joined the campaign on behalf of De Pa claiming he was on a private visit and the next minute he was in Ghana observing democratic elections on behalf of ECOWAS. So much for ECOWAS's seciousness! In any case we now hear that even ECOWAS is fed up and will no longer recruit Babasala for such missions. What was he doing pretending he can be a neutral arbiter? Anyway here are a few issues: Candidacy Fees - This parliament must close whatever loopholes exist in the Electoral Laws Act that allowed Christiana to decree those exorbitant fees that would have ended the political career of many of the people now sitting in the House and the local councils. And let the government cut all unnecessary spending and use the savings to drastically increase our counterpart funding of future elections. It’s a shame that we depend on others to fund our elections, or we charge prohibitive fees to elbow others, especially from the opposition, out of our suffrage. Campaign Timetable – We absolutely hate the fact that NEC had to produce a timetable by which parties must conduct their campaigns countrywide. We know the angle they were coming from. They are part of those who believe Sierra Leoneans can’t engage in civilized competition without killing each other – it’s a wartime mentality. May be they have a point because we were also shocked by some of the acts of violence we saw on our streets.
However, we think the timetable was very patronizing. Why do we have the police? The most interesting tactic of the authorities during the whole process was to roll back our civil liberties every time the police failed to do their job. The campaign schedule was widely violated against small parties; the authorities took our cars off the road on voting day causing so much pain and just to announce an election result, they introduced MAC-P. – Soldier deploying in Freetown as if they were about to take Kismayo from Al-Shabab.
We have seen elections in other African countries and there were no such restrictions. We must make it impossible for any future NEC Commissioner to patronize us in the way again. So the bar association should press on in court even if only to get a declaration on how NEC overstretched ther powers.
Christiana’s Political Statements – On September 17 2007, Christiana made a long speech before declaring the result in favor of Ernest Bai Koroma and his APC party.
Here is an interesting line we picked out of it:
Thorpe: “There is a very important message arising from these elections: there is no longer a place for fraud and malpractice in the Sierra Leone electoral system…”
Politico – This was clearly a political statement that an Electoral Commissioner anywhere on our planet should not make. Christiana had just invalidated thousands of votes and she wanted to tell Sierra Leone she was really in charge. A lot of people knew what was happening in Sierra Leone at the time. Let’s say she was right to have said that even as Electoral Commissioner, how can she guarantee that “there is no longer a place for fraud and malpractice in the Sierra Leone electoral system…” So what was she doing invalidating more votes only five years later?
Christiana Thorpe in 2012: “I personally as chairperson of NEC want to assure all Sierra Leoneans who came out in large numbers across the country that the commission has followed international standards…every vote has been counted. Your voice has been heard”
Politico – That’s Christiana again, after five years. She just can’t resist making these statements. The Electoral Commissioner’s business as far as we know is to organise elections and announce the result and not to try and become the ultimate judge of moral rectitude every five years. Was “every vote” that was to be counted, counted? Did she not nullify some results? We don’t want to go into details here but is there any country where all votes are counted and every voice heard by means of an election?
What if the court agrees with the opposition (we know there is no possibility of that happening) that the elections were fraudulent, how would Mother Theresa react?
“Your voice has been heard” is a politically-loaded expression that Electoral Commissioners should avoid using even in retirement.
We have a few more to go through but let’s wait for the New Year.
The Most Innovative Way to Remain in De Pa’s Cabinet
We count ourselves extremely lucky to be alive to see this period in the history of our country. We are talking about the period after elections when the elected president decides to delay the naming of his ministers after telling the old ones that many of them will not be returning to their posts.
See how our big men are behaving in these few days they still have in their old posts – some are publishing 100-day plans which they did not do for five years they were there, releasing questionable figures about monies collected in their departments, some are suddenly signing protocols and making headline-grabbing speeches about the good country of Sierra Leone and so on. This is getting ridiculous. The former savior, Madam Alice Koroma, De Pa’s mother is no more – watin man go do now ba?
Look at this contribution from Pope John Paul’s consultant in the Ministry of Sport. We have selected portions of an open letter to the president published by Mansaray. Please note our comments. Before we start, let’s re-state a few things: We have already published our views that the Pope will probably survive De Pa’s cull of his ministers but might be transferred to another ministry. And we gave our reasons. So we have nothing against him, in fact we respect him a lot. But we consider the action of his ministry’s consultant as totally unnecessary and a woefully puerile attempt to influence De Pa’s decision.
Source – SAIDU MANSARAY’S OPEN LETTER
“I have served about 11 Ministers of Sports since I joined the National Sports Council in 1975 and I am in a position to tell you that throughout my tenure I cannot recall the success and good direction we have witnessed by any Minister responsible for sports than what has characterized the tenure of Mr. Paul Kamara over the last two years”. Politico: Come on Mr. Consultant, why are you doing this to yourself? So those who took us to the African Cup of Nations twice and brought us the zone II trophy and other trophies in cricket and athletics are complete failures? While we don’t necessarily blame the Pope for this, it was on his watch that Sao Tome of all countries beat Sierra Leone. We have been dumped out of all major tournaments including the third-rate CHAN. The Premier League almost did not end until the league board chairman Victor Lewis went out of his was to salvage it; Sierra Leone came close to being thrown out of FIFA and we now have the disgrace of an undemocratic Normalization Committee running football just because the Pope meddled too far.
Mr. Consultant, we suspect that with or without the Pope, your job is secure. Please relax. Mercury money is flowing again.
Saidu Mansaray: “Sport was generally in a state of decadence with no direction and no development. The structures, policy, programs and funding are among the biggest challenges responsible for the stagnation of our sports development strides throughout the years. Within these few years of Mr. Paul Kamara’s tenure as minister responsible for sports we are now seeing cogent plans for development in these areas”. Politico – And you’ve been serving there since 1975? And you are so desperately fighting for more years to your service while others languish to the extent you want to meddle into partisan politics and governance? When will fresh brains like president Obama get the opportunity to serve their country? “In addition to all of the above he is presently in discussion with World Football Project based in the USA, to sign a Memorandum of Understanding, which will see the supply of over a hundred thousand footballs specially manufactured to meet the needs of youths and children in all areas of the country, in order to afford every child in any part of Sierra Leone the right and opportunity to play”. Politico – Mr. Consultant, 100,000 footballs? How many Jabulani balls did we get from FIFA after the World Cup in South Africa? In that case De Pa must stay in office for life. Didn’t he throw more than one million balls around the country during his World Best campaign?
What are the terms of your contract anyway? We just hope De Pa will end all this by appointing his ministers without further delay.
