BALLOT News X Issue No. 2 September 2007 SIERRA LEONE ELECTIONS an example of the ELECTIONS we want By Jealousy Mawarire T he recent presidential and parliamentary elections in Sierra Leone on 11 August 2007 where the Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN), under the auspices of the African Union (AU) and the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI) send some observers, were an eye opener and a living testimony of how other African countries have evolved democratically. Most importantly, the Sierra Leone elections exhibited the gateway to electoral credibility in a country whose previous elections were littered with irregularities. This was Sierra Leone's first post conflict election managed by a local electoral management body after the 2002 which was managed by the United Nations. What struck the ZESN team most was the amount of trust that the electorate, the political parties, civil society and government had in the National Electoral Commission (NEC), the body tasked with running the elections in the country. Other than the fact that the commission is truly independent of government, the idea that it is headed by a person whose public profile attracts approval and contentment from all sectors of the society is neither here nor there. The Sierra Leone experience showed the need for a truly independent electoral commission headed by a credible individual whose moral aptitude is beyond reproach if elections were to be credible in this country. In the case of Sierra Leone, the NEC chairperson is a trust-worthy and incorrigible professional whose appointment was acceptable to all stakeholders in the electoral X process. That Dr Christiana Ayoka Mary Thorpe, the head of NEC is a nun and a devout Christian are not the only facets of her profile that made her acceptable, but that her vision, that of bringing credibility into whatever she does, weighed in heavily towards her universal acceptance in the electoral process is never in doubt. What a country that has had a history of disputed elections needs is a transparent, people-driven electoral process that could suddenly bring trust where there is mistrust, satisfaction where there is suspicion and credibility where the song has always been fraud and post election litigation. This, however, comes with the appointment of a truly independent electoral management body whose secretariat is professional and whose terms of reference are non-partisan. With Sierra Leone, the chairperson was just what the doctor had ordereda person whose determination was to see there was credibility in the way the elections were conducted. She managed this by ensuring the process was transparent and inclusive of everyone who had a role to play. In one of the many interviews she had with the press in her country, she clearly spelt out her vision. “At NEC we're doing our best to establish credibility in all what we do. Our approach has been to get everybody in the process and let the nation know that collectively we all have a role to play in ensuring that the elections are credible and acceptable,” she told one journalist. Clearly, fostering credibility is what she did. Party activists and polling staff involved in irregularities during the local elections in 2004 were purged during the staffing of NEC for the 2007 elections. 1500 NEC officials who were implicated in electoral fraud related accusations in 2004 or those who were found A ZESN Observer inspecting ballot boxes in Sierra Leone Continued on page 19 18