Zonal executives and members of the Sierra Leone People’s Party(SLPP) in the East Rural District, have accused their district chairman, Dr. Eldred Tunde Taylor of moves to undermine fairness and rig their forthcoming lower level elections set to start on Saturday, 8 February, 2025.
According to the aggrieved members and supporters, Dr. Taylor and his cronies have calculatedly stifled the verification of zones and the sales of the cards meant for the elections deliberately depriving those they see as opposing forces to their campaign. They said the cards are only sold to members of Dr. Taylor’s camp.
Therisa Koroma, a staunch member of of the SLPP, who is also the Women’s Leader of the Yellow Mosque Zone in Constituency 108, disclosed their zone was left out of the verification phase, a process she alleged was single handedly done by Taylor to get rid of his opponent in the elections.
“Dr. Taylor didn’t verify our zone. In fact, he had hired thugs and the police to intimidate and push us out during the entire process.”
Alpha Kamara, Zonal Chairman Black Stone Zone, revealed that the current moves by Dr. Taylor and his team are geared toward disenfranchising them because they have been constructively critical of his regime. Kamara added that Dr. Taylor has not been a supportive leader to party stalwarts in the ERD.
“Everything about his leadership had been about himself not until dates for elections were announced. And now, because he knows he doesn’t command popular support amongst us he’s designing strategies to rig the elections, an idea we will meet with the stiffest resistance,” he said.
Zonal executives and members of the SLPP across the ERD have also mounted up similar allegations. They accused Dr. Taylor of dictatorship, lack of support and victimization of those who do not buy his dictation.
Expressing their suppressed feelings, members of the ruling SLP in ERD said that the party, inclusive the membership has been starving and suffering from lack of development and support for far too long despite their stakes in a district covered with opposition mud.
“As a party in governance, it’s a shame that we don’t even have a district party office in the ERD. Dr. Taylor has been in office for far too long to make excuses for that. He has failed us. And shamelessly so, he now has the effrontery to go around making donations and giving out money to vulnerable supporters just because he’s sensed a defeat in the coming primaries. We will not allow him to use us a means to an end.”
They revealed they have complained their concerns to the national leadership of the SLPP, PPRC and the security sector.
The aggrieved argued that any attempts by Dr. Taylor to rig the elections will only prepare a stage that will destroy the gains made by SLPP in the ERD.
Aruna Jalloh, Constituency Chairman of SLPP in Constituency 108, told journalists in an interview that he had not delegated the sales of the cards to zonal executives because he had received instruction from his boss to not do so for unclear reasons. He said the cards were available for sale at his residence.
Dr. Taylor in a telephone conversation with a colleague from the AYV denied the allegation that he had given such instruction.
Sources within the national leadership of the SLPP indicated that 20,000 serialized voter cards were accorded the East Rural District. Sales were supposed to be done by zonal executives to the general membership supervised by the district executive.
The ERD holds a different case here. Only a small number of cards has been sold out to the membership. Elections locations have also been changed and moved out of their respective zones and constituencies. Elected and gazetted executives considered opposing Dr. Taylor have been forcefully removed and sidelined. There are complaints of regional interference. Certain executives in the Western Area region have also been accused of tampering with the elections to favor Dr. Taylor.
In the previous elections, the same executives are alleged to have connived with few individuals in the district to catapult Dr. Taylor into the position of district chairman despite his newness to the party in the district. His winning didn’t command the popular vote. The controversy had led the election to be taken out of the district – a decision that did not receive the support of party stakeholders in the ERD. Most of them didn’t show up.
