By Alusine Fullah
The European Union Election Observer Mission in Sierra Leone presented its final report on the June 24 general elections to President Julius Maada Bio on the 10th October, 2023.
In line with the above report, the Vice President of Sierra Leone, Mohamed Juldeh Jalloh on his tweeter page questioned the report presented by the EU Chief Electoral Observer, Evin Incir.
“This morning, I received the EU Election Observation Mission’s Final Report on the Sierra Leone General Elections 2023. I shared with the Chief Observer and her team my initial thoughts on the report. In my view, the report is skewed more towards a political understanding of the elections rather than a technical understanding. The expectation of this report is for it to be technically sound in order to help improve future elections through identifying key institutional, legal and operational lapses. However, it is filled with normative assertions and very limited electoral analysis. The myriad of inconsistencies and lack of clear evidence risk undermining the quality of the report. How do you interpret assertions such as “divisive online communication…created insecurity for rural voters? How do you explain the technical value of the report when four out of the seven priority recommendations are political in nature?
“With my previous experience and knowledge in the organization of elections in Africa and Europe, I have had the opportunity to work closely with several institutions, including the EU. I believe that EU Election Observers Mission can do better, particularly in producing high quality reports that are rooted in sound technical and analytical understanding of elections,” he twitted.
Vice President thanked the EU Election Observation Mission for their efforts, noting that he looks forward to continuing engagement with the European Union to strengthen the electoral system in Sierra Leone.
Copy right –Printed in the Expo Times Week end Newspaper on Friday 13th October, 2023 (ExpoTimes News – Expo Media Group (expomediasl.com)