As the August 11 polls left the People’s Movement for Democratic Change (PMDC) with ten parliamentary seats, the party’s leader Charles Margai has said they are bracing up for the 2008 local council elections.
Mr Margai explained that, “we have learnt from the mistakes of the past, to ensure victory in the local government elections slated for next year and of course the presidential and parliamentary elections that will be held in 2012, we are now preparing.”
Adding that they had learnt quite a lot from this [August 11] election and that they would not agree that the elections process went well “especially from the way the elections were conducted starting with the voters’ registration process unto the conduct of the elections themselves.
But we thank God that the elections were peaceful and we hope the run off will be as peaceful if not more peaceful than what we saw two weeks ago.” Appealing to the international community, the PMDC leader maintained that they should make sure that all that occurred during the August polls where they discovered stuffed ballot boxes must not repeat again.
“So in that regard the international community should make sure that each polling station has the presence of international observer team and also make certain that the ballot boxes in their respective areas be policed and also there should be the presence of the civil societies during take off and landing,” he noted.
To the media, he said they had a vital role to play as they should ensure that they look at Sierra Leone as the only land that God had given them and made sure that the national interest be paramount. ”The nation in the view of PMDC is bigger than any single party and the party is bigger than the individual. So the press has the responsibility to play the role of watch dogs of the people of this country and should not compromise that which is not in the national interest,” Mr Charles Margai stressed. Mentioning the ruling Sierra Leone’s People’s Party (SLPP), the PMDC leader stated that that party should take an introspective view of itself and its activities over the last 11 years. On the issue of violence, the legal luminary said Sierra Leoneans were tired of violence as they wanted peace and that without peace and stability there could not be development. “I am appealing to those of our brothers who are not members of the armed forces or the police force but who have been armed for whatever purpose to rethink and think very deeply that the people want peace,” he urged.
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