Low Turn-out for Sierra Leone’s Local Government Elections

A low turnout of voters marked the start of polling in the local government elections in Sierra Leone on Saturday. When the polls opened at 7 am local time in the capital, Freetown, few people stood in line to cast their votes. Among them were the aged, amputees and a couple of blind people.

“We want to cast our votes so that the incoming councilors and mayors will give us basic social amenities such as water and sanitation,” said 68 year old grandmother Susan Sesay.

Another voter, Morlai Kanu told APA, “the blind have been neglected and there are few things we can point out that are provided for us. With my vote, I hope it would influence the new councilors to take up our plight.”

Elsewhere in the interior, local reports say voting has gone on peacefully, but also with a low voter turn-out.

Speaking to APA by telephone, independent radio broadcaster Sydney Carr in the city of Bo in the south and one of the areas designated by police as “flashpoint for possible violence”, said there was calm.

“The police are out in full force here and on the alert,” he said.

In the diamond mining district of Kono in the east, where sporadic election related violence had occurred days before the election, a radio correspondent for another independent station reported that “some polling booths were not screened from public view.”

Reports also said that some residents in Mano Dasse in the south had stayed away from the polls saying, that they see no reason to vote when they have not seen any benefit as yet from the last election.

Source African Press Agency

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