By: Saidu Jalloh.
With the just concluded village head election, the Electoral Commission of Sierra Leone has rejected 42 out of the 45 petition cases received from people to overturn the election results for rerun election. This announcement was made in press conference held by The Electoral Commission for Sierra Leone.
Before the announcement of the village head election, The Commissioner of the Electoral Commission, Mohamed Konneh made it clear that the 42 petition cases were rejected due to insufficient evidence to nullify the election results. He quoted the relevant the relevant section of the Public Elections Act of 2022 in which he noted that the Electoral Commission conducted the village head election on Saturday 28th October, 2023 in the Western Rural District in accordance with other legal framework. ‘’The Commission received a total of 45 petition cases of candidates who participated in the just concluded village head election. The commission has however reviewed the petitions and dismissed 42 because the lack sufficient evidence to for the result to be overturns for rerun,’’ Mr. Konneh reveals.
He asserted that there would be a rerun of election in Bogawai and Number Two River, and that investigations continue on the petition received on Samuel Tam. He also continued to give total round off of the people or villages that took part in the election in that he said out of the total of 121 villages Western Rural District for which candidates nominations were declared, the commission received 305 nominations. He also added that after the nominations, two candidates withdrew from the election and 270 candidates contested in its villages and 33 villages were declared uncontested after the nomination, and that they are going to declare those uncontested seats or positions as direct winner to those contested.
In the process, the most important of the press conference which many attendees were waiting for was the announcement of the village head elections result. Zainab Umu Moseray, the Electoral Commissioner for Western Rural Area stared to call the provincial result for Western Rural Area in which she said Jui Village, a total of 15 polling stations results were entered into the result data base representing 100% of all polling stations in Jui Village while the election was conducted a total number of votes cast was 1, 801 and 50 invalid votes and a total valid votes cast was 1, 851.
She said Alusine Kargbo scored 1,08 valid votes cast and Koroma Mohamed Albert scored 607 valid votes, Kamara Mohamed Hamza 186 valid votes scored. She furthered called the results for Kuama Village in that she said a total of four polling stations were entered into the results data based system representing 100% of all polling stations of Kuama village were the election was conducted, the total number of valid votes cast was 733, there were 42 invalid votes, total votes casts was 775. She said Koroma Bobson scored 285 valid votes; Kargbo Sorie scored 224 valid votes scored, Kamara Osman 142 valid votes and Kargbo Abu 82 valid votes.
The press conference was climaxed with mixed feelings from various peoples who came to witness the announcement of the election results.
