Tag: Elections

ECOWAS commits $500,000 in support of Sierra Leone elections

    The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has provided Sierra Leone with US$500,000 in financial support towards the June 24 Presidential and Parliamentary elections.
    The ECOWAS Commission, also, will deploy 95 Election Observers (Long and Short-Term – LTOs/STOs) to observe the elections. The President of the ECOWAS Commission, Dr. Omar Alieu Touray, approved the deployment of the Observers.
    This is in line with provisions of Articles 12 to 14 of the 2001 regional Supplementary Protocol on Democracy and Good Governance on assistance to Member States holding elections.
    The ECOWAS Election Observation Mission will be led by Dr Mohamed Ibn Chambas, a former ECOWAS Commission President and ex-Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General and Head of the UN Office in West Africa and the Sahel, with Amb. Ansumana Ceesay, former ECOWAS Representative in Liberia and Guinea-Bissau to serve as Deputy Head of Mission.
   The Mission will be assisted by a Technical Team to be led by Amb. Abdel-Fatau Musah, ECOWAS Commissioner for Political Affairs, Peace and Security.
    The deployment of the Election Observation Mission is a follow-up to the joint ECOWAS and African Union pre-election fact-finding Mission to Sierra Leone from 12th to 14th April 2023.
    Fifteen Long-Term Observers (LTOs) have been deployed to Sierra Leone from 15th June, 2023. The team comprises experts in election administration, gender, conflict management, security, legal and constitutional issues, and the media.
    From 20th June, the LTOs will be joined by 80 STOs drawn from the ECOWAS Permanent Representatives’ Committee, Member States’ Foreign Affairs Ministries and Electoral Management Bodies, the ECOWAS Council of the Wise, Community institutions (Parliament and Court of Justice), Civil Society Organizations, the Media, and election observers.
    Thirteen candidates from 17 registered political parties are vying for the Sierra Leone presidency, including incumbent President H.E. Julius Maada Bio, who is seeking re-election on the platform of the Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP).
    The SLPP defeated the then-ruling All People’s Congress (APC), in the last presidential election in 2018.
    Some 135 Parliamentary and 493 Local Council seats will also be in contention on 24th June.
   Others seats in the spotlight of contest include the seat of the Mayor of Freetown to which APC’s Yvonne Aki-Sawyer is incumbent and SLPP’s Gento Mohammed Kamara also contesting.
    The Electoral Commission for Sierra Leone (ECSL) registered 3,374,258 voters for the 2023 elections out of an estimated population of 8.7 million. Voting will take place in 11,832 polling stations within 3,630 polling Centers across the 16 electoral districts nationwide from 7:00 AM to 5:00 PM.

Socialist presidential candidate Pedro Castillo wins in Peru

In voting on June 6, Pedro Castillo, candidate of the Peru Libre (Free Peru) political party, defeated three-time presidential candidate Keiko Fujimori, daughter of imprisoned former president Alberto Fujimori. Five days later, with all votes counted, Castillo claimed a victory margin of 69,546 votes or 50.2 % of the votes. Keiko Fujimori, who gained 49.8% of all votes, is charging fraud and demanding that 200,000 votes from rural areas be recounted.

Castillo’s narrow victory, yet to be officially validated, represents an abrupt shift from Peru’s norm of corruption, right-wing ascendency, and political instability (such that in one week in November 1920, three presidents took office, one after the other.) Castillo’s unexpected first-round victory on April 11, with 16.1% of the votes, was unsettling enough to his competitors that almost all of them backed Keiko Fujimori in the recent voting. Neither of Peru’s two Communist parties offered Castillo support.

In office, he will face formidable obstacles: a hostile national press, a Congress that overwhelmingly opposes him, business and financial establishments in panic mode, and retired military figures threatening revolt. Additionally, Peru’s total of deaths attributed to climate change is the third highest in Latin America, and its rate of deaths due to COVID-19 infection is tops in the world.

Under the auspices of dictator Alberto Fujimori, who ruled from 1990 to 2000, Peru turned to undiluted neoliberalism characterized by foreign profiteering from mining and oil and gas extraction and by privatization of healthcare and education. A long-established rural-urban gulf widened. Rural disadvantage, affecting Peru’s indigenous population in particular, provided the boost accounting for the victory of Castillo and his party.

The divide separates Lima, with 40% of Peru’s population, from rural districts, where Castillo scored overwhelming pluralities, some in the 80-90% range. Political attention to rural life from national centers of power, from Lima, has been sparse. Candidate Fujimori campaigned only fitfully in Peru’s countryside.
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Castillo, born in 1969 to illiterate parents, has taught in a rural elementary school since 1995. In 2002, he was an unsuccessful mayoral candidate. Earlier, Castillo had taken a leadership role in autonomous peasant patrols (known as “ronda campesina”) responding to thievery and political turmoil. He gained prominence in 2017 for his part in a teachers’ strike. He and his family operate a small subsistence farm.

The Peru Libre Party, established in 2012, calls for nationalization of extractive industries, a new constitution, and respect for women’s rights, including reproductive rights. It claims to be Marxist, socialist, and anti-imperialist—but not Communist. Campaigning, Castillo called for “No more poor people in a rich country.” Fujimori based her campaign on fear, as she tried to associate Castillo with terrorism, communism, and Cuban and Venezuelan socialism. She extolled her father’s past success in corralling the Maoist Shining Path guerrillas.

According to its website, Peru Libre “originates from the provinces, represents Deep Peru, and is committed to people who are most in need … Peru Libre has governed in the regions and [small] cities … and firmly defends decentralization … We are internationalists … The Party condemns all types of imperialism … interventionism, and foreign dependency.”

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