Of all the many Commissions, Authorities and other para-statal outfits that government spends whooping sums of money, some with little results, only few really come under the spotlight. Some very critical ones are the National Electoral commission, the Anti-Corruption Commission, The National Commission for Democracy, political Parties Commission and the Human Rights commission. The 2018 four-tier elections are very critical however I wonder how many of our political parties are ready. We continue to suffer as a nation because of the myriad of inadequacies most of our parties have.
Elections run on a calendar sanctioned by statutory provisions and that is why monitoring bodies like the National Election Watch (NEW) tightly keeps reminding Election Management Bodies of their sacred responsibilities. There has been so much interest in the electoral process this time around especially with the popularity of the Social media. You could recall how so many people were interested in the Parliamentary conversations some time ago when a private Member Motion challenged the legality of the ongoing Civil and Voter Registration because the Boundary Delimitation had not been tabled in parliament. Well all that is now behind us as parliament allowed the registration to go on with the proviso that the Attorney- General’s Office and the National Electoral commission review the Boundary Delimitation report incorporating the new Districts of Karine and Falaba.
Many of our Public offices may not be performing at acceptable levels but by and large citizens and Government let them be. It is amazing that even when we all know that the internal dynamics of a lot of our Political Parties are not positive enough to write home about, these parties expect the Elections Management Bodies to perform perfect jobs. To be honest the performance of the National Election Commission has over the years up to today been very commendable. The recent drama in Parliament demonstrates that various Bodies should support each other in order to perform effectively and efficiently. Like Sydney Poitier says in one of his films, “We are tied to the same chain, if one drowns the other goes down too.” It is like being handcuffed together and indeed you have to cooperate.
Those of you, who are familiar with the entire electoral process, will understand that every activity is very important and the sequential nature makes it mandatory that time tables have to be followed closely with every thoroughness. I think NEC has been doing her best, especially as there are quite some important decisions that are taken by higher authorities that may not be dictated to.
A very major activity in the electoral calendar is the Boundary Delimitation which is often described as a complex, time-consuming and controversial and expensive exercise. The term Electoral Boundary delimitation is usually used to refer to the process of drawing boundaries of electoral areas (for constituencies or wards, as the case may be), usually of roughly equal population, for the purpose of electing representatives to Parliament or Local Council. Boundary delimitation is and politically tricky. Variations in the population quota are permissible to take account of the following factors: means of communications; geographical features; density of population; the distribution of different communities; the areas and boundaries of the chiefdoms, and other administrative or traditional areas.
We also have the population quota to be determined. NEC Consults Parliament and Parliament determines the number of Constituencies into which Sierra Leone is to be divided i.e. The total number of Ordinary Members of Parliament (MPs). For the 2018 elections, Parliament gave NEC 132 seats for ordinary Members of Parliament. The population quota for the 2018 Elections the population Quota is 53,603. This is the average for each Constituency. Furthermore there is a deviation range which is +/- 25%. This means that all constituencies must fall within the population of 40,202 and 67,004.
Civil Society Organizations which understand the Boundary Delimitation process had every reason to be worried about the difficulty of including the new districts of Karine and Falaba without starting the whole process all over again. Definitely the districts bordering the two new Districts will undergo some adjustments, some quite uncomfortable. Well the good news is that NEC is experienced enough to know how to do it and they work in collaboration with Statistics Sierra Leone to draw the technical maps. Knowing the complexity of the activity perhaps it could have been better to ask NEC how long it will take them to complete the exercise of including the new Districts rather than Parliament giving them a time frame.
Salient questions need to be asked like; why so many activities are crammed into the election year, knowing full well that the electoral calendar cannot be tampered with if we are to have credible outcomes. Tell me it is not deliberate! Otherwise if it is, it puts into doubt the political will to follow the electoral calendar. It is difficult to understand that although the government has had some nine years in office, it is only in the very last year to elections that other activities are brought in to be incorporated that have direct consequences of the electoral activities that have already been done. Why was the redistricting not done a long time ago before the boundary Delimitation exercise? Very soon we will hear of a referendum which in itself has processes to follow. Are our authorities really doing the right thing? When all this is happening after the failed “More Time” and “Third Term” anti-democratic campaigns, then one wonders how sincere we can be.
Constituency boundaries are not delimited based only on populations alone but also considerations are done based on other factors like physical geographical features, administrative/ historical boundaries, ethnicity, means of communication and road networks etc. One fact we need to know is that Constituencies do not cross District boundaries and for even chiefdoms it is in very rare cases.
I wonder whether for Falaba District the boundary was drawn with population density consideration. I hope the experts considered that. The current registration exercise should be completed and ID cards given out, full six months before the election date. This is stipulated by law and cannot be toyed with. Do you now see the basis for apprehensions over any delays in the Electoral calendar? Just now we do not know when the government White Paper is coming out on the new Constitution as we understand the referendum may be done before the general Elections. What beats me is that the generality of citizens are yet to know the major changes in the Constitution. Well thousands of candles can be lit by a single candle and the life of that candle will not be shortened.
By Ben Cambayma
Tuesday May 23, 2017.
ADVERTISEMENT