Over Parliamentaryand Councilor stand-off… Information Minister urges SLPP to rethink
The Minister of Information and Communication, Ibrahim Ben-Kargbo (in photo) has called on Sierra Leone’s oldest and leading opposition party, the Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP), to reconsider their stand-off over refusing to participate in the democratic process following the recent out come of the 2012 elections.
The Minister noted that such decision is an attempt to circumvent the democratic culture of our nation, pointing the backdrops of argument that the majority of the Sierra Leonean people had spoken by voting the president into office, in an election tagged by many local and international observers as the most credible elections in the history of our nation.
He argued further that claims or requests by the party, for the sanctioning of the ‘nolle proseque’ which gives power to the Attorney General to declare any case or offender of the law, void or better, still free from all charges to their supporters under police custody for riotous conducts, as uncalled for, saying it is an attempt to malign the due process of the law.
Alhaji Ben-Kargbo goes further to recite the powers of the (1991) Constitution, which he says allows the other arms of government to function even at the current status quo the SLPP party has desired to derail the state into, saying the governing party still commands two third majority especially in the House of Parliament.
In other attempt to strike the argument further, the Minister of Local Government, Ambassador Dauda Kamara, explained that in view of the stand-off of those newly elected councilors, council is still mandated under the whims and caprices of the statuary agreement to put modalities in place so as the governance process will not be stifled.
It could be recalled that the opposition party is yet to stomach the outcome of the November electoral results, citing grounds of massive ballot stuffing and widespread electoral malpractice. This response provoked the party’s National Executive Council to issue out a temporary stand-off to all their elected members of Parliament and council from assuming office until the National Electoral Commission and the international bodies addressed their cries.
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