SLPP Claims Victory of Koinadugu bye-elections and accuses APC of hiring thugs to beat SLPP supporters and to disrupts the election process.

On Saturday October 2, 2021, the National Electoral Commission (NEC) conducted bye elections in Koinadugu district for the District Council Chairman and Councilor respectively in the said district.

The SLPP and APC went into the contest to replace the two vacant seats. From the onset, the APC made efforts to disrupt the elections, but met resistance from the people who have embraced the developments of the SLPP government and were ready to demonstrate that in the ballot box.

The APC hired thugs and supporters attacked and mercilessly beat up a young man and vandalized in front of their party by the RC school polling station and videoed the brutality, no arrest was made. In Santi Balia APC thugs attacked two stations and burnt down electoral materials.

In Alkalia, a relative of the APC councilor aspirant was caught with a voter ID bearing a different name, she was arrested and handed over to the police. At Shanghai compound polling station, APC party members and their thugs stormed the station and tried to disrupt the process, they were stopped by the SLP.

The SLPP treated them as isolated incidents and still continued mobilizing its supporters to come out in their numbers and vote.

After the elections and the results collated from all the polling stations by the SLPP had shown a clear victory for our party, the opposition APC went into their usual antics of deceiving their supporters and crying wolf where none exists. One of their key stakeholders in the district posted a photo of himself with a fake election results written on a piece of paper even before the commencement of official tallying of results.

On Sunday whilst the collation of votes was going on at the Community Centre in Kabala town, the APC representatives, sensing a devastating defeat for their candidates after five hours of tallying, started to raise issues aimed clearly at disrupting the process. The APC demanded the process to stop and asked NEC to start it all over again.

Let it be known to the general public that the SLPP will not accept any attempt by the APC to force its will through blackmail, on the people of Koinadugu whose inhabitants outside the township of Kabala have suffered many years of devastation and deprivation in the hands of the APC. The people have spoken through the ballot box and their voices have been heard.

The SLPP is patiently waiting for NEC to complete its process without any blackmail by the APC and for our Councilor and Council Chairman respectively to take their seats and deliver the much needed development for the people of that district.

We are appealing to our members and supporters to remain peaceful and be confident of the victory which we already got on Saturday. We also call on the Sierra Leone Police to maintain the peace and security of the NEC officials in Koinadugu in particular and the district in general. Our victory cannot be derailed or scuttled by a vanquished political party whose only aim now is to create mayhem.