Series of protests marred and stained the Sierra Leone People’s Party lower-level elections in the East Rural District by party members who had been left out of the process by the party’s executive led in the East Rural District by Dr. Eldred Tunde Taylor.
The elections didn’t hold and were left disrupted. Teargas and live bullets were fired by the police to disperse angry protesters some of whom were left wounded and disturbed.
According to Musa Mansaray, Zonal Chairman of the Black Stone Zone in Waterloo, their resentment came as a result of open interference by the SLPP East Rural District Chairman, Dr. Eldred Tunde Taylor, who was seen patrolling and allegedly conditioning the elections to his favor.
Dr. Taylor, who doubles as the Deputy Minister of Energy 1, has also been accused of using his status as a government minister to wrongly influence the police and use thugs to orchestrate violence and interfere with the electoral process.
Musa said Dr. Taylor has bastardized the SLPP constitution and its electoral guidelines, and had also forced delegates, amidst disenfranchising and discarding those perceived as not supporting his aspirations, to manipulate voting outcomes to favor his desired candidates.
Key SLPP stakeholders, inclusive local party members and voters, met on Sunday, February 16, 2025, in a meeting in Waterloo to express deep and troubling concerns that such actions don’t only weaken the democratic status for which the SLPP is known nationally and internationally, but also undermine and shatter gains made by them to give the party a firm grip in an opposition stronghold over the years.
Several other party members have accused Taylor of tampering with the elections to help his candidacy in the forthcoming SLPP district chairmanship election in the ERD.
There have also been allegations of lack of credible and disorganized verification of zonal executives machinated and led by Dr. Taylor himself, importation of notorious and active APC members to participate in the SLPP elections, the conduct of elections in private residencies of known supporters of Dr. Taylor, failure to display the voters’ register as stated by the SLPP constitution and its electoral guidelines, selective and restrictive sales of voters’ cards to only members of his cabal etc.
He has also been openly hit by the former SLPP East Rural District Chairman Habib Thorpe. In a widely circulated audio on social media, Chairman Habib outrightly challenged Dr. Taylor’s “undemocratic nature” and called for fair play in the elections. He damned his callousness and lack of support to the grassroots of the SLPP East Rural District, especially those who have been there and made invaluable sacrifices for the party since when it’s in opposition.
David Kai Matturi, current Secretary General of the SLPP in Constituency 107 in the ERD told This Day that Dr. Taylor’s interference into the conduct of the said elections has tainted the entire process.
“We want free and credible elections where every choice is upheld, not one where members are sidelined and outcomes are surreptitiously decided,” he stated, disclosing that police officers had stopped him from entering his voting center on the instructions of DR. Taylor.
These developments and more have triggered a disturbing situation for members of the SLPP in the East Rural District, with many demanding investigations and an eventual rerun of the elections with an independent oversight.
A petition led by Joseph Shekuyeh Deen, the substantive but marginalized district PRO of SLPP in the East Rural District, states“serious inconsistencies and irregularities in the conduct of the February 8th, 2025, Sierra Leone People’s Party (S.L.P.P) zonal elections.”
“These irregularities resulted from the failure of both the District and Constituency Executives in the East Rural District to adhere to the provisions of the August 11th, 2020, Revised Constitution of the S.L.P.P, the February 5th, 2021 Rules and Regulations for the Conduct of All Lower-Level Elections, and the January 18th, 2025 S.L.P.P National Executive Council (N.E.C) Resolutions on the Conduct of Lower-Level Elections.”
This has intensified calls for transparency and reform within the party, with voters and aggrieved members urging the leadership to uphold democratic principles.
Dr. Taylor was handed the mantle of leadership for SLPP in the East Rural District in 2021 in equally controversial elections, few years after the elections that brought SLPP back to power in 2018.
His divisive leadership and failure to provide the district with a party office to properly coordinate its activities are seemly hunting him down.
