By Fatmata Binta Bah and Suliaman Jalloh
Hon. Alpha Jalloh of the opposition All People’s Party (APC) party from Falaba District has reacted to his party’s boycotting Parliament on the approval of Edmond Sylvester Alpha as Electoral Commissioner of southern region on Thursday, 23rd May, 2024.
Speaking to journalists just after the boycott, Hon. Jalloh said as per the Constitution of Sierra Leone, his party should be consulted on the appointment of an electoral commissioner; something he claimed President Julius Maada Bio did not do.
He clarified that they took part in the debate to make their point clear, but boycotted the approval of Mr. Alpha.
Mr. Edmond Alpha is one of the commissioners that presided over the 2023 elections which were challenged by the APC. It is against this backdrop Hon. Jalloh said they could not take part in approving Mr. Edmond Alpha.
Hon. Daniel Koroma, who acted as the leader of his political party in Parliament, said his party’s rejection was based on the claims that the APC party, as a registered political party, was not consulted by President Bio before the reappointment of Edmond Sylvester Alpha as the Electoral Commissioner for Sierra Leone (ECSL) Commissioner Southern Region, as stated in section 32 subsection 3 Act. No. 6 of the 1991 constitution of Sierra Leone, something he said as representatives of the people they will not be part a process that breached the constitution among others.
“Number one reason, we cannot be a party to breach constitutional provisions” Hon. Koroma assert, stressing that the constitution stated it clear before an appointment of an electoral commissioner the president must consult all registered political parties and that APC was neither part, excluding his party it cannot constitute all.
“The APC party was not consulted by any form, nor by phone, by ledger, by any how we were not consulted” the law marker pointed out, adding that because of the immediate past of the national multi tire election in the country, observers from local, national and international raised concerns about the formality and the conduct of the June 23, 2023 election of which the appointed commissioner was part.
According to him, members of committee on appointment had raised the same concern before coming to the plenary.
Despite the boycott of the All People’s Congress, the House of Parliament went on with the approval of the controversial appointee Edmond Sylvester Alpha as ECSL Southern Commissioner and two other appointees including the deputy commissioner of the country’s Anti-Corruption Commissioner (ACC), Augustine Today Ngobie, and Hon. Manso Dumbuya as board chair of the Sierra Leone Ports and Harbor Authority.
The Leader of Government Business in Parliament Hon Mathew Nyuma argued that the All People’s Congress as a registered political party was duly consulted and the party equally tendered its response, saying all seventeen registered political parties in the country were consulted and only nine including APC replied to the consultation.
He underscored that his party, the Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP), remained the finest political party in the history of Sierra Leone that works with the dictates of the law, noting the government of President Bio will continue to work with the national constitution which it recognized as the fundamental body of law governing the country.
Copyright –Published in print in Expo Times Newspaper on Friday, May 27th , 2024 (ExpoTimes News – Expo Media Group (expomediasl.com)
