𝐒𝐋𝐏𝐏 𝐑𝐞𝐣𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐬 𝐀𝐏𝐂’𝐬 𝐃𝐞𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐬

𝐁𝐲 𝐌𝐨𝐡𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐝 𝐅𝐨𝐟𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐡.

Despite the “Ill-preparedness of the All People’s Congress (APC) Party” for the June 24, 2023 multi-tier elections, the ruling Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) has confirmed that the demand by the APC Presidential candidate for the resignation of the Chief Electoral Commissioner and other Electoral Commissioners will not be met and that the election will go ahead.

Speaking at a press conference at its party headquarters in Freetown yesterday, SLPP National Secretary General, Umaru Napoleon Koroma Esq., said APC’s demand is an “outrageous attempt to use the Board of Electoral Commissioners as scapegoats for the ill-preparedness of the party for the June 24, 2023 multi-tier elections.”

Reading the party press statement, Koroma Esq., said: “The SLPP will stoutly reject any attempt to disrupt the 24^th June 2023 multi-tier elections as a result of APC’s failure to prepare for the multi-tier elections.”

President Dr Julius Maada Bio and the Electoral Commission for Sierra Leone (ECSL) made an announcement for the conduct of the multi-tier elections over a year ago as part of efforts to provide all political parties adequate time to plan and prepare for the 24th June 2023 multi-tier elections.

Also, several engagements have taken place over the last 12 months involving all political parties and election management bodies through the Political Parties Liaison Committee (chaired by ECSL) and the Election Steering Committee (co-chaired by the Chief Minister and the United Nations Resident Coordinator) to promote free, fair and credible elections.

“The Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) is gravely concerned about the deliberate attempts by the All People’s Congress (APC) to disrupt the peaceful elections and reverse the democratic gains Sierra Leone has made since the return to multi-party democracy in the late 1990s,” Koroma Esq., read the party statement.

A statement added that: “The controvertible statement by the APC Presidential Candidate, Dr. Samura Mathew Wilson Kamara at the press conference (June 14, 2023) is nothing more than a compendium of unsubstantiated claims, conjectures, blatant inaccuracies and preposterous allegations by a candidate who is apprehensive of an embarrassing defeat at the forthcoming polls.”

In the press release, the SLPP also stated that the suggestion by the APC Presidential Candidate to replace the Board of Electoral Commissioners with a so-called “independent internationally accredited team of electoral commissioners” to conduct Sierra Leone’s national elections is disrespectful to our collective consciousness, an attack on the sovereignty of Sierra Leone and a specter of his unfitness to be elected as President and sovereign Head of State.

“The bogus demands and unacceptable deadline by the APC Presidential Candidate are merely characteristic shenanigans by a political party desperately seeking a postponement of the 24th June 2023 multi-tier elections that has the tendency to create a constitutional crisis in our country.”