Pressure is mounting on the All People’s Congress (APC) leadership to sack the National Coordinator of the party’s Independent Elections Management Committee (IEMC), Mr. Hassan Kamara, over what party supporters describe as gross incompetence and lack of credibility in conducting the ongoing lower-level elections.
Angry supporters who spoke to The Informant in Makeni, Kabala, Tonkolili, Kailahun, Pujehun and Freetown said the IEMC under Mr. Hassan Kamara has lost credibility and cannot be trusted to conduct the crucial National Delegates Conference that will elect the party’s flagbearer for 2028.
“Incompetence has taken over APC IEMC. How can you be conducting elections with always overvoting, ballot stuffing and delegates’ lists being tampered with?
This is not an election; it is a mess,” an angry supporter told The Informant Newspaper.
Another youth leader in Freetown stated: “We are calling on the party leadership to remove the IEMC National Coordinator and his team immediately. If they cannot conduct credible lower-level elections, they cannot conduct national elections. We will not accept it.”
On several APC WhatsApp forums, party members have been demanding an immediate overhaul of the IEMC, describing the lower-level process as “a disgrace to a party that wants to govern Sierra Leone.”
Adding weight to the calls is a senior member of the APC, Mr. Alpha Koroma, who openly questioned the credibility of Mr. Hassan Kamara to lead the party into its most important election.
In an interview with The Informant Newspaper, Mr. Koroma was blunt:
“If Mr. Hassan Kamara can’t conduct a credible lower-level election process, how are we sure of him conducting credible, fair and transparent national delegates elections? This is the fundamental question every APC supporter is asking today.
Mr. Koroma argued that the National Delegates Conference will involve over 1,500 delegates, 132 constituencies, international observers, and flagbearer aspirants who have invested millions of Leones. If the IEMC cannot manage 61 delegates in Constituency 044, how will it manage thousands?
“The lower-level elections are a litmus test. And right now, the IEMC has failed that test woefully. The leadership must act now before it is too late. The credibility of our flagbearer election is at stake,” Mr. Koroma added.
Attempts to get an official response from Mr. Hassan Kamara proved futile, as his phone rang unanswered up to press time.
However, in an interview with Liberty Online Television, Mr Hassan Kamara acknowledged the fact that there has been overvoting and ballot stuffing in some of the areas where they have conducted elections and admitted that they have been perpetrated by some of his team members who are working for aspirants’ interests.
However, a source close to the APC National Secretariat said the leadership is “aware of the challenges and complaints” and is reviewing the situation.
“We are receiving reports from all districts. The National Advisory Committee will meet soon to address all concerns raised about the IEMC,” the source said.
Meanwhile, several flagbearer aspirants, including Mr Mohamed Kamara aka Jagaban, are reportedly uncomfortable with the current state of affairs, fearing that a flawed lower-level process will produce compromised delegates who will, in turn, produce a compromised flagbearer.
For now, the message from the grassroots is loud and clear: Remove Hassan Kamara and his team, or risk the credibility of the entire 2028 process.
The APC was expected to showcase internal democracy as a contrast to the ruling SLPP. Instead, supporters fear the party is showcasing incompetence.
Will the APC leadership listen? The Informant Newspaper will continue to bring more updates on the APC’s ongoing lower-level election process.