The intractability of an issue should not be any reason why it should not be addressed. Of course, we all know by now that life is indeed not a bed of roses where all is bliss and splendour. Because no one has monopoly of knowledge, we need to explore everybody’s energy in order to move things and bring about the much needed change that society always yearns for.
This where one needs to commend Christiana Thorpe and the National Electoral Commission for what they been doing over the years. We also know that the brave do not definitely live forever, but indeed the cautious do not even live. In a secured mind, a secured state; not vice- versa, what we learn, what we do, we see what is wrong. So we learn also from our mistakes and achievements. The mistakes show where there are shortcomings in our knowledge, and the weak points which have to be improved upon. Although it is often so common to place all our political partisanship problems on ethnicity and regionalism, there are actually other equally potent factors that pose equally hard challenges. Some of these are the still foggy delimitation or non-delimitation of key political players round the country like the Chairmen of Councils, the Paramount Chiefs, the Provincial Secretaries and the now added District Officers. For the Paramount Chiefs in Parliament, one sometimes wonders whether they fall within prescriptions of the principles of separation of powers. On one level, they are legislators through their representatives and on the other they are some sort of Executive.
Although many groups have again sprung up to campaign against violence, some political party members are still spitting fire. See what happened during the bye elections for a Councillor position in Freetown over the week end. By now we should be concentrating on voter education and the preparedness of political parties to comply with already signed MOUs and indeed the PPRC code of conduct for political parties. We need to avoid the void votes and over-voting that took place in the 2007 elections. It is very important for all and sundry to understand critical issues about the elections. Mind you, in this 2012 election, Sierra Leoneans would for the first time be exposed to a multi-tier voting pattern. Voters would have to vote four times on a single ballot paper for different candidates.
We have, and continue to see so much controversy over the interpretations of the laws governing elections. One should expect that instead of waiting for the nick of time and preach anti-violence, civil society groups should in good time sensitize the populace on everything about elections, with particular emphasis on the biometric voter registration and the pattern of voting. In this way the people would be able to better understand what the election processes entail and would have a sound mind set to approach the election. Meanwhile, there are lot of equivocation in our laws and our electoral laws are no exception.
Let us focus this time round on the issues around political campaigns, political rallies, and political processions; public meetings, sensitizations or meet-the-people-tours. The recent police ban on political outdoor activities stopped short of prescribing any limitations with even gatherings at political offices. I think where we go wrong each time, is that we adopt shortcut solutions to protracted problems. In short, we are for the most part acting within the box – adopting rather myopic or short-sighted remedies to serious problems. What happens is that the problems never go away. We all know that there are huge groups of our compatriots who over the years have proved very dangerous when elections are around. But guess what, these are the ones that are pampered and patronized by the system or regimes in power thereby making these perpetrators feel that their violent actions are a norm and therefore accepted. Look, such people have no business with elections. Look, unless or until the authorities charged with the responsibility of regulating activities of political parties and their conducts during elections, we will continue to make the same mistakes and cries about electoral violence.
One thing that needs to be cleared once and for all is this idea of political parties seeking permission or giving notification for campaigns and rallies. There is so much confusion over how to distinguish between for example, sensitization and campaigning; between marches, processions and campaigns.
There are three main statutory instruments guiding the conduct of elections in Sierra Leone. These are The Sierra Leone Constitution Act No. 6 of 1991 which I understand many people have still not seen, let alone read it; the Electoral Laws Act 2002; and the Political Parties Act 2002. One thing we have to clear is the fact that the existence of any political party has to span five years coinciding with the five-year term of office of the winning party that subsequently forms the government. The laws expect political parties to continue functioning as political entities throughout the period. But the question is; giving the poor state of most of our political parties; can they really fund themselves through to the other election? This is part of the problem- many parties are formed very close to elections and after elections which they lose, they always go into oblivion like they had never existed. Such political parties are formed for the purpose of elections only; just like Sunday clothes. Let us get back to this whole issue of campaigns and the other related political conundrums.
Section 114 Sub-section (1) of The electoral Laws Act 2002 states: Where a political party wishes to hold a demonstration or procession, during an election campaign period it shall, at least, three days before the event, submit a written report to the Electoral commission indicating the date ,time and place for the holding of such event.
What I see here is a tricky situation. This is about demonstrations or processions during campaign periods. One would want to ask therefore; how about processions or demonstrations that are staged outside campaign periods. We need to watch it! There is still the notorious 1965 Public Order Act which was passed at a time when our population was perhaps a paltry 1.2 million or so and the train was snaking then through the length and breadth of the country. That Act forbids so many things that are done today with impunity. The Act even forbade noise after 6pm; but that is not the case today. The 1965 Public Order Act stresses libel so much that it appears threatening to everybody. The kind of obscenities and public order disorders on our streets and communities today for which no public order law is invoked actually makes that 1965 Act childish and nonsensical. It is such issues which are carelessly handled that rare their ugly heads during elections and turn to be difficult to address.
However, for the powers that be, it is only during elections that they tend to stimulate these laws for action against their adversaries or opponents.
To bring much sanity to the whole process of elections this time round, we should cross- match the statutory provisions in the three main instruments aforementioned. We need to cross-match the critical provisions and harmonize them in an acceptable way. One major area that comes to mind is political campaigns at the chiefdoms level. Although the law stipulates that political parties and or persons must notify the Paramount Chief, this notification is being interpreted as ‘get permission from’. Such ambivalences in the interpretation of our laws are indeed part of the controversies that always pervade our electoral atmospheres. It is therefore very clear that the main players responsible for ensuring credible elections in the country should be frequently meeting and consulting with each other to ensure things go the right way.
The police undoubtedly are very critical to any kind of election. They are required and expected to provide adequate and appropriate security for every one irrespective of political party affiliation. The police have tremendous powers. These powers however, are expected to be exercised with restraint when it comes to elections to ensure their success. However, lots of people do not like heavy police presence at polling stations. It is mostly intimidating! However, their presence can help curb potential outbreaks of violence; though tension cannot be averted. In fairness to the police, their job is very tricky. One would think that they should be neutral but of course giving the fact that they are part of the normally disadvantaged groups, they are often very much interested in the outcome of elections. Low salaries, poor condition of service and general depravity are no friends of democracy.
Indeed law and order are close components of democracy and good governance. Democracy depends to a very large extent on the existence of the Rule of Law. One only mentions political and civil rights when the Rule of Law is at play. A state that is rife with violence most of the time especially perpetrated by its political elites may never lay claim to democracy, even if they conduct elections and hand over power from time to time. The preparations for elections and the conduct of elections are as important as the declaration of results.
The alarming growth of the population means that policing the state is getting extremely difficult. The Sierra Leone Police is stretched with an estimated 12, 000 for a population now estimated to be 5.2 million. This has made policing very difficult for that institution.
The armed Operational Support Division (OSD) for example, is between 2000 and 3000 personnel strong, the rest are the unarmed general duty officers who by the nature of their job interact with the citizens on a daily basis. With our current population, it could well be about 1 policeman to 1000 citizens. This means the success of the police also depends on us the ordinary citizens. I really think the police and the people have to agree to work hand in hand to realize the benefits of our young and fragile democracy.
By Ben Cambayma
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