Relations between Republic of Sierra Leone and the United States under the current Bio-led administration still suffers backlash.
It is over questions on ‘integrity’ on the government of SLPP which was controversially declared winner of June 24 polls by ECSL.
While the incumbent president Julius Maada Bio was announced June 27 by Chief electoral commissioner, Mr. Mohamed Konneh, which was just three days after voting, world leaders of democracy have yet to accept the outcome of Sierra Leone’s June 2023 elections.
The United States of America, UK, the bastion of democracy in the world, have refused since then to congratulate president Julius Maada Bio.
”President Bio is the president of Sierra Leone; so we are not saying he is not the president. But we are yet to congratulate him,” says the outgoing US Ambassador to Sierra Leone, David Reimer, at a radio interview on Tuesday day August 16.
Sierra Leone People’s Party government headed up by president Maada Bio is running a second five-year term in governance amidst deep mistrusts at national, regional and international community.
Mr. Bio is being refused to be accepted the presidential winner by a local coalition of CSOs on Sierra Leone’s June 24 General Elections and key international elections observers mission like The Carter Centre, EU, UK and USA.
The Observers had earlier said the elections have lacked transparency and integriety.
And the US stance still remains the same just like EU, Carter Centre and UK.
”The United States is concerned about the irregularities in the results announced by ECSL; inconsistencies that were analyzed by domestic and international observers,” says US Amb. Reimer.
” All of these things raised questions in our minds, not just the United States but really all over the world about the integrity of the official results.”
The latest response by the outgoing US ambassador to Sierra Leone has attracted keep interests by senior local political analysts.
A lecturer of International Relations and Diplomacy at a college in Freetown has said the strain relationship between Sierra Leone government and the United States and key leading players of democracy UK, France and Germany would has already dented Sierra Leone’s reputation in the world.
”It surely going to affect our nation and our people because the US, UK, Germany and France , would not be fully funding major projects that may positively impact the lives of ordinarily poor Sierra Leoneans,” he said.
”And mark you, Sierra Leone can’t afford to lose favours from her colonial master, UK and we have lot more to fix as a nation in terms of developments and our relations with key players of democracy absolutely matter a lot more.”
Also, most people in Sierra Leone have taken to social media sites to comment on US and Sierra Leone relationship.
A critic of president Maada Bio and his SLPP government and a staunch supporter of the main opposition, APC, had this to say on a WhatsApp group immediately his party has taken a new stance for a dialogue with the government.
” Great demands from our party stakeholders.
After these demands have been met we insist on the re–run. These dialogue will be to our advantage,” he said.
All People’s Congress party, just after June 27 Konneh’s announcement of president Bio as the winner of ballot votes cast on June 24, it reached a general consensus with 54 of its MPs to refuse to participate in the government of president Bio.
The APC led by Dr. Samura Kamara had given ECSL, Electoral Commission for Sierra Leone, six months to call up for a ‘fresh elections’ in the country. Kamara and his team have repeatedly stood on their grounds that they would not compromise and negotiations that are not in tuned with their key demands–the issuing by ECSL of the aggregated elections results and a re-run of the posts within a six months period.
But the government has instead called for a dialogue and has advised for a post elections observation committee be set up which will be headed by Bio’s vice president, Dr Mohamed Juldeh Jalloh.
But this has been disputed by the opposition and a leading human rights advocate and a revered and renowned lawyer Basita Michael.
She said the post-election committee must not be led by a party figure like the VP.
”National Electoral Systems Review Committee- to review the legal framework and purpose reforms- seem noble on the surface. However, any attempt at reform must begin with an honest assessment of what went wrong,” says Mrs Michael.
”The failure of the ECSL to release detailed polling results or allow an audit of the results and the concerns raised by international observers about the tallying process point to deeper systemic problems. Without acknowledging and addressing these issues, any reform effort risks being superficial at best.”
US ambassador Reimer has also raised doubt on the credibility of the post elections review committee by the government.
He calls for an investigation of an ‘independent outside source’ on the controversial elections results of June 24 Sierra Leone Multi-tier elections.
Mrs Michael’s latest disapproval of government proposed electoral review committee has got more weight added by US ambassador Reimer.
Mr Reimer, though, he has implored APC to participate in the government of Mr. Bio, President of the Republic of Sierra Leone. But he still condemns and refuses to consider the government as credible.
”Moving forward, we review all our programs with government including the MCC compact; what is not going to change is our activities with the people of Sierra Leone; really our focus here is with the people of Sierra Leone; the health programs started we are going to continue with all of them; we may even expand some on the health programs,” says outgoing US ambassador.
”We will continue to be with the people of Sierra Leone no matter what.”
The US has poured millions of dollars to African countries to improve and strengthen the principles of democracy and the rule of law.
But Sierra Leone, the US ambassador said, has lately not failed out on upholding ‘elections integrity.’
On the process leading to the government and the country’s inclusion on MCC, Mr Reimer said, Sierra Leone did well in most areas.
But he said: ”We said they needed to have a fair, free, open, and transparent election.”
But given the fact that there are all sort of questions about the results, he added, what the US is doing is slowing or taking a pause on MCC support to Sierra Leone.
”We are going to see what the government of Sierra Leone does next before we move forward with the compact,” he said.
As Sierra Leone-US diplomatic relations sour, the next US ambassador to Sierra Leone is expected to honour the stance of the American government.
”US position is the US position; it is not based on an individual. Certainly y, when the new ambassador comes here, he will have his own style, he will his own way of doing things, but the position of the United States government is not one of individual.”