State House, Freetown, Tuesday 10 October 2023 – His Excellency President Dr Julius Maada Bio has received the final report of the European Union Election Observation Mission, EU-EOM, on the 24 June general elections, welcomed its recommendations and assured of their implementation.
While making the presentation, Chief Observer Evin Incir, who is also a Member of the European Parliament from Sweden and accompanied by Head of the European Union Delegation in Freetown, Ambassador Manuel Müller, said they appreciated the long-standing partnership with Sierra Leone.
“We look forward to building on the cooperation. The main focus of the report is to address issues of transparency and accountability in the electoral processes,” she said.
In his remarks, President Bio indicated his government’s commitment to implementing the new set of recommendations, adding that they had incorporated about 66 percent of all previous successive ones and the only backlog required a parliamentary process to address entrenched clauses in the constitution.
To that end he said his government would take a detailed look at the report and see how they could handle the suggestions for improvements, reminding the EU-EOM team of the issues around the 2007 and 2012 elections, the latter of which he questioned when he lost.
“I had the same issues as a Presidential Candidate in 2012 but I went to court after the elections. In 2007, the Electoral Commission, cancelled ballot boxes and announced the result when it did not have the mandate by law to do so.
“We always have had challenges, but we take pride in dealing with the problems in the 1991 Constitution, which we are reviewing now with the support of our development partners. It is a consultative process and we hope to see the opposition parties participate fully.
“I am pleased to inform you that the post-election dialogue will start soon, and the Constitutional Review Process will be part of the discussions. Therefore, this report comes in handy to be part of the review process and the recommendations might be considered to address outstanding issues. Thank you once again,” he concluded.
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