Sierra Leone Telegraph: 27 June 2023:
Sierra Leone’s elections watchdog – NEW, has concluded its press conference in Freetown this morning, after Marcella Samba Sesay – a member of NEW announced on national radio yesterday that, she will be forced to publish the election results NEW has in its possession – based on its own tally of votes cast across the country last Saturday, if the Electoral Commission announces false or incorrect results.
Contrary to statement published yesterday by Electoral Commission of Sierra Leone (ECSL), NEW says that “the results announced by ECSL are based on 60% of polling stations in each district but do not represent 60% of the total votes cast in each district because polling stations vary in size.”
This correction by NEW, critics say, thus exposes the incompetence and fraudulent behaviour of the ECSL boss – Mohamed Konneh.
Mohamed Konneh had wrongly and deliberately created the impression that the partial results announced by ECSL represent 60% of all votes cast in all districts.
What is also significant is that NEW said this morning that, no presidential candidate has achieved the constitutionally required 55% votes to avoid a runoff.
Sierra Leoneans will now go to the polls again at a date to be announced by the ECSL after its has declared the final results in the next few hours.
This is the statement published this morning by NEW:
You can watch the recorded press conference here:
As far as I’m concerned, Marcella Samba who is the head of National Election Watch(NEW) can fabricate any allegation against President Bio of the SLPP party which I’m tempted to believe is personal. She attempted this same gimmick in 2018 and she is repeating the same pattern this year as shown in the below link:
https://www.thesierraleonetelegraph.com/attempts-to-discredit-maada-bio-ahead-of-runoff-elections-will-fail-says-slpp/
NATIONAL ELECTION WATCH (NEW) your bahaviour is similarly to that of the idiot in Holland with no truth coming out of his mouth but all lies. Your action in public saying that no party candidate will reach 55% threshold in the election is totally bang out of order. It is no your place to call out that even if your were right. You can not play the part of ECSL, you are just a watchdog. In my opinion you should be banned from functioning in Sierra Leone. You are part of the FAKE NEWS. Shame on you.