January 14, 2022
There are implications for proportional representation that plays in the favor of the ruling Sierra Leone Peoples Party. It is in the nature of proportional representation as one of the constitutional white paper recommendations. Multimember constituencies create the room for more seats in based on the votes cast for political party candidates. Where the opposition All Peoples Congress had been having the upper hand in the western area in terms of seat, the proportional representation is going to change that come 2023 general and presidential elections. In the ruling party strongholds of south and east, we are expecting landslide votes and by extension more Members of Parliament. The opposition All Peoples Congress is surely going to be disturbed by this prospect. But the opposition cannot see it as something that this government manipulated. It has been a process that then President Bai Koroma initiated through late Justice Edmond Cowan. It has been a multistakeholders engagement to have us reconditions that are contained in the launched white paper. The National Elections Commission will now have to come out with the parameters to determine how the number game will be played out in determining the allotment of seats based on the multimember constituency arrangement of proportional representation.
This government’s commitment to reform is the best way to proceed as a means of winning donors confidence to cash-in in development programs and projects. President Bio has earned another plus in gender empowerment as another noteworthy issue in the white paper.