Local government elections to be held in July

The National Electoral Commission (NEC) has announced that the local government elections will be held on the 5th of July 2008.
The 2008 Local Government elections will be conducted for the five city councils of Freetown, Bo, Kenema, Koidu-New Sembehun and Makeni, one municipal Council in Bonthe Township and 13 District councils.
The NEC Commissioner for the North, Algasimu Jah also announced key dates for the Local Government Elections process, pointing out that they had established a legal framework for ward boundary delimitation and local government electoral process.
The boundary delimitation, which is ongoing, will end on 28 February next year.
The commissioner north also announced that the voter registration used for the 2007 Presidential and Parliamentary elections would be updated from March 1 – 15 and that campaign period would be declared from June 21 – July 3 2008.
The Commissioner said that the mayor and councilor elections would be held differently for the 2008 local government elections as opposed to the 2004 elections I which people only voted once for all councilors and the councilors in turn elected the Mayor.
The final result of the Local government elections would be announced on the 19 July, Mr Jah stated.
The Commission also announced that by-elections to fill four parliamentary seats made vacant in Parliament would be held in March 2008.