The Spokesperson of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), Chernoh Alpha Bah has yesterday called on Sierra Leone’s opposition parties to resist against the newly introduced nomination fees recently prescribed by the country’s National Electoral Commission (NEC) ahead of elections scheduled for November this year.
Sierra Leone media reports say that Bah has asked “all registered political parties to kick against the killer nomination fees prescribed by the country’s electoral body with a public show of a nation-wide mass demonstration.”
Speaking in a telephone interview from Nairobi yesterday, Bah says political parties should ignore votes in the face of a threat on the country’s democracy.
“We must prevent Ernest Koroma and Christiana Thorpe from undermining the democratic values of our country,” he told the Global Times newspaper on Monday.
His comments came after Sierra Leone’s Electoral Chief, Christiana Thorpe announced a more than one thousand percent increase in the nomination fees for candidates contesting the elections.
The newly announced fees require presidential candidates to pay the equivalent of US$25, 000 to be eligible to contest whilst candidates for parliamentary positions should pay US$5,000. These new rates represent a drastic increase from the initial fee of US$250 for presidential candidates and US$50 for parliamentary candidates in previous elections.
Bah told the Global Times that the more than one thousand percent increase in nomination fees represents a form of vote rigging.
“The hiked fees itself indicates that opposition political parties are not only contesting against the APC of Ernest Bai Koroma but also against NEC, and we therefore urge all well-meaning citizens to resist against this decision,” he says, adding that “Christiana Thorpe's decision typifies how the APC has eroded the independence of our democratic institutions.”
He said the entire issue itself puts into question the credibility of NEC and its ability to conduct free and fair elections.
“The APC and NEC are attempting to transform the country into a de facto one party state and an aristocracy, where only politicians with stolen resources will hold the rest of the country hostage,” he said, pointing out that “under the current circumstance, the entire mass of the country must be organized to demonstrate against APC-NEC’s attempt to undermine the values of our multi-party constitution and the true spirit of democracy.”
However, eight of the country’s opposition parties including the NDA have already signed a joint communiqué condemning the hike in nomination fees and called on the country’s electoral body – the NEC – to revert to the old fees.
NEC officials have argued that twenty-seven percents of its budget must be raised from candidates wishing to contest for public offices and that their decision is based on the provisions of the recently passed Public Elections Act of 2012.
But Bah says laws are made to build and develop societies not to destroy them.
“The ambigiiuty of the electoral laws must not be used by NEC or anyone to create barriers that disenfranchises the vast majority of the population for economic reasons,” he stated.
The controversial nomination fees is expected to be tabled before parliament this week for ratification. The joint communique by opposition parties has asked the country’s members of parliament to vote against the new fees.
It is not known how ruling party MPs are going to respond to the matter when it comes before them in parliament. But senior APC officials have already supported NEC’s decision to increase the fees saying, “politics is not meant for the poor.”