By Jonathan Leigh.
The National Electoral Commission will today on Tuesday
officially declare the start of elections campaigning
and on the eve of the declaration, the Parliamentary
aspirant of the PMDC in constituency 57 in the Port
Loko district, Saidu Koroma has been disqualified.
His disqualification by NEC was the outcome of an
objection to his nomination by the SLPP aspirant Abdul
Kamara that the PMDC candidate was up to May this year
receiving salary as a teacher of the Ahmadiyya Muslim
Primary School at Masiaka contrary to the Electoral
Law which says aspirants should resign their job a
year prior to the elections.
In Constituency 47, also in the Port Loko district,
Ibrahim Kemoh Sesay of the APC filed a similar
objection against Haja Yepate Sankoh but did not
provide evidence and so his objection was quashed.
Kemoh Sesay, not satisfied with the decision, has
forwarded an appeal to the Political Parties
Registration Commission (PPRC).
Another matter that was referred to NEC was Abdul
Kamara again objecting to the nomination of the APC’s
Abu Bakarr Koroma in Constituency 57, Port Loko
district.
Koroma had earlier flouted the PPRC code which forbids
aspirants from displaying their party symbols before
the official start of campaign. Even rival for the APC
symbol, Chernor Ojuku Sesay had before now complained
to the party’s secretariat and NEC but the party went
ahead and awarded him the symbol against the
background of another letter from NEC drawing their
attention to this deliberate violation of the
electoral code.
He is the son of the ageing SAT Koroma, an member in
the APC’s National Advisory Council which is the
Supreme decision making body. SAT Koroma once
represented that constituency in parliament and held
several key ministerial positions in the regime of
late Siaka Stevens.
Reports also have it that it was SAT Koroma who brought
Ernest Koroma to the APC and so a lot of arm twisting
was done to have his son win the party’s symbol.
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