By Beny SAM
The experimental practice of western democracy in Africa and the rest of the so-called Third World has for a long time been dogged, given the multi-ethnic and geo-political chemistry of the countries that hardly promotes or nurtures democratic ideals like in the western hemisphere.
Sierra Leone is no exception here. It is an illusion to think that we are living in a just world. The fact that you had no chance to choose your parents or the country to be born was the beginning of injustice.
Human beings, being what we are, we are always acting far from the ideal, yet everybody expects the ideal to be always done on planet earth. What has been overwhelmingly sounded loud and clear from so many quarters, be they citizens, observers, civil societies and the like is Transparency in the electoral process. Indeed it has been the sexiest word in people’s mouths! We need to note that where there is prosperity, it is easy to enhance human dignity and it is also easier to strengthen democracy. In this environment also we can expect to achieve democratic governance based on transparent and accountable institutions. One such Institution in Sierra Leone is the Electoral Commission of Sierra Leone (ECSL).
The many outcries from citizens over transparency or lack of it is because the bulk of our citizenry are ill informed, the lettered and illiterate alike. You only need a nitwit or nincompoop to rumour our fake information and the many uninformed and uncritical will pick it up and run with it. As I type market women especially at the east end of Freetown may not sell on Monday July 2 because some political outfit allegedly told them so! This is very sickening given that the bulk of our compatriots live on “ahn to mot.” This means they buy what to eat for the day when they sell their wares.
With the enactment of the Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment Act (GEWE), Sierra Leone has gone a very long way to support standards on the protection of women and empowering them to claim their rights. There have also been affirmative actions to promote citizens’ rights and access to identification documents. This is why we witnessed a lot of attention paid to Citizens’ identification documents from the National Citizen Registration Authority (NCRA).
In the most succinct definition of Democracy, people are placed at the centre, so one finds citizens’ participation as very foundational to democratic governance.
Like already mentioned citizens have and continue to pay a lot of attention to the transparency of the electoral process to the extent that the ECSL was and has been many a time accused of not being fully transparent, especially in their interactive information with the generality of the public. Well ECSL maintained that it was transparent in all it does and that there were structures to ensure this. Good governance requires effective’ representative, transparent and accountable government institutions at all levels, public participation, effective checks and balances, and the separation of powers.
What is this transparency that everybody is crying over? Generally, Transparency includes how open a public entity’s activities are; it looks at the extent to which it provides information about what it is doing, where and how this takes place, and how it is performing. Also transparency involves responding to requests for information. It is about providing people with the info they need to engage in the decisions that affect them. In this way, transparency is an ongoing dialogue between a public entity and its stakeholders about the provision of information.
Hold it; I need to say something; I am constrained to think that this our world was made to have justice and equality to exist side by side with capitalism, poverty and deprivation. Remember, the most affluent countries in the world are the least religious and you have most Africans praying before and after every activity. I hope nobody gets me wrong here.
Equally important is the fairness expected at elections. The concept of Fairness is about dealing with a matter in an equitable and unbiased manner. In practice, it means that enquiry agencies act independently and with an open mind and consider all relevant information carefully and without undue delay.
Elections run on a calendar sanctioned by statutory provisions and that is why Election Management bodies (EMBs) play major roles in free, fair, peaceful and credible election outcomes. The highly statutory guidance for elections makes it sometimes challenging for the ECSL to timely meet all the demands of the stakeholders and the general citizenry. In addition some of the actions have to be outsourced to specialists or technicians. Examples of these are the printing of all sensitive and non-sensitive materials to maintain trust and confidentiality. There has been a great hype in the interest in the electoral process of late, especially with the popularity of Social media.
When you take a look at the entire electoral process, you know and understand that every activity is very important, and the sequential nature makes it mandatory that time tables have to be followed closely with thoroughness. I think NEC has been doing its best to maintain its independence and effectiveness in this area.
It is no gainsaying that the 2023 general elections had a bit too many controversial issues and partisan disagreements. The District Block Proportional Representation was introduced after long debates, with portions of the opposition objecting to it.
One area that needs a lot of improvement going forward is public education and sensitization on electioneering issues. Here political parties have to be sincere with the kind of information they pass on to their members, especially those that cannot read or write the English Language. Although Social media can be a potent means of information dissemination, the use of hate speech, fake information and other vices can defeat the entire purpose of information sharing. This was the case before, during, and after the 2023 elections. So unfortunate that even the results were declared by political parties and their members before the authoritative pronouncement from the Chief Electoral Commissioner, Mr Mohamed Kennewui Konneh.
Well now that the results are out, I implore all citizens to promote peace and tranquillity. Let us all positively exercise our intelligence, emotional, social, and adversity quotients for the development of Mama Salone.
