CCSL Hosts Political Parties, Security Sector on Peaceful 2023 Elections
By Josephine Koroma
Thursday October 20, 2022
Freetown,
The Council of Churches in Sierra Leone (CCSL) in collaboration with the Inter-Religious Council Thursday engaged the security sector and political parties to map out the way forward for peace and national cohesion ahead of the 2023 elections.
In August, the Inter-Religious Council engaged political parties in a frank political dialogue following the August 10 violent protests. The focus of the engagement in October was to strategize, on how the security sector together with political parties as primary stakeholders can collectively work together for peace and national cohesion. The dialogue was geared to cement the relationship between political parties and the security sectors having in mind their responsibilities and position as primary stakeholders in building and maintaining peace in Sierra Leone.
Rev. Osman Fornah, General Secretary of the Inter-Religious Council said the election management body, the security sector, the political parties and faith-based organizations have a crucial role to play in any country to ensure peaceful, free, fair and credible elections and so are expected to perform their responsibilities without fear or favor and be nonpartisan. He said the Inter Religious Council together with Council of Churches in Sierra Leone will continue to provide the mediation and facilitation role and do all that is within their reach to have continuous engagement with relevant sectors in keeping the peace in Sierra Leone.
Chief of Staff, Office of National Security (ONS), Francis L. Keilie said the security sector provides a people-centered kind of security and not a security for any regime protection. He said that was why they make sure a space is created for all political parties and shades of opinion. But because a particular mentality has set in, he said, they always find it difficult to build confidence especially with opposition parties. But they hope to be able to develop that kind of rapporteur so that as elections approach, there will be trust and confidence in the security sector by all.
Besides, he said, the security sector was poised to have hitch-free elections come 2023, but because elections in Sierra Leone are associated with violence, it has warranted the security sector to be a permanent feature in the electoral landscape. In other countries, he said, elections are conducted without much security alarm and people would go about their normal businesses, a thing that is yet to happen in Sierra Leone. He noted that the sector has the Integrated Election Security planning committee that has the responsibility to plan the entire security process of the election and they have put together a comprehensive national threat assessment that will be used in 2023. Hate speech, deliberate misuse of social media, political intolerance among others are some of the general threats identified but the sector is prepared to handle them, he explained.
Giving their positions, political parties recommended a frequent engagement of political parties and the security sector to understand themselves better and avoid conflict. Another recommendation was a tour involving the Peace Commission together with all political party leaders to all parts of the country where they would preach peace.
Honourable Abdul Kargbo interim Secretary General of the All People’s Congress ( APC), Outlined incidents of ‘injustice’ done to their party members since they lost power in 2018 elections, ranging from the removal of APC members of parliament to the arrest of party supporters in which the APC has not taken any violent step; “yet our party has been accused of being sponsors of the violent insurrection in the country even when we have issued a press release disassociating ourselves from violence and calling on our party supporters to be peaceful.”
RUFP National Secretary Alice Pyne refuted some of the claims of the APC Secretary General claiming that the APC is not as peaceful as the secretary claimed, citing the case of Adebayor, the Holland resident political inciter who uses social media to incite youths, rain invectives on national and religious leaders in the name of the APC. But sadly, she said, the APC had not done enough to distance itself from Adebayor who claims to speak for the APC. Pyne expressed her dismay that after the 1991-2002 civil war, governments in and out have ignored addressing the causes of the war as recommended in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission Report even though the indicators for the war are clearly evident in the country today. She outrightly condemned the August 10 rioters who killed security personnel and said it was foolhardy of them not to have expected a backlash from the police and military.
Jonathan Sandy of NURP observed that lack of political cooperation and trust for government institutions is a big challenge.
Many other political party representatives contributed to the frank talk session and together with the Inter-Religious Council, the gathering put together a way-forward recommendations among which were the following:
That there was need to review the 1991 constitution; improve on civic education; that the security sector should be proactive in preventing violence; that there was need for national peace dialogue by political parties among others.
Sierra Leone’s President Julius Maada Bio Receives Council of Churches in Sierra Leone on Centenary Celebrations, Recognises Their Role in Peace-building State House, Freetown, Thursday
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