The All People Congress (APC) party parliamentary candidate for constituency 001 in Kailahun district, East of Sierra Leone, Haja Nasaratu Jalloh (Nee Ngobeh), did not vote for herself in the just concluded bye-election because she was not registered there.
Despite not being a registered voter for Constituency 001 where she was awarded a symbol by the ruling APC party to contest for the seat of parliament in the just concluded bye-election in Kailahun district, madam Jalloh was able to obtain total valid votes of Four Thousand Four Hundred and Ninety-Three (4,493) votes from Eighty-Nine (89) polling stations with a total voting turnout of 15,144 out of a voter register of 25,702.
The fact that the APC candidate did not vote as a result of not being a registered member of that constituency did not prevent both their party and strong members from that part of the country to put in all they can to have polled that number.
There are allegations that certain government officials ahead of the election, distributed One Hundred bags of cement, One hundred bags of rice, money, and promises of construction of hospital, health centres and the formal signing and commissioning of major roads in the district.
Even though one could see the result as good start for the APC candidate the issue that she did not vote for herself did not go down well with some supporters, women and ordinary citizens in that part of the country as many argued that the party should have awarded their symbols to an indigene that had voting rights in that constituency.
One of the task force and centre monitor for the APC party Amara Fartorma (not his real name) expressed frustration over the manner at which their party imposed the candidate on them stating that they were expecting either primaries or district consultation for selection among women in their party. He said as a party they have women who have won councillor position in the district so if their party district and national executive will have given considerable thought on that, they would have obtained more than the thirty percent, he assured.
With all the violence, the percentage turnout of 58.92 percent was obtained representing 14,670 total number of valid votes cast with an increasing number of invalid votes – 474 representing 3.13 percent. The just concluded bye-elections was manned by lots of violence, alleged intimidation and tensions from both the ruling and opposition parties since symbols were awarded to the two female candidates.
The three political violence erupted among supporters of the two parties left injures not only on the minds of citizens in that part of the country but also contributed greatly for the turnout of voters despites been described as successful by many in terms of bye-elections turnout in the country.
By Mohamed Kabba
Monday July 11, 2016
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