His Excellency President Dr. Julius Maada Bio has during his lecture at his alma mater, American University in Washington DC, reacted to the concerns raised by Election Observers including the Carter Center in the United States of America (USA) about the conduct of the Saturday 24th June, 2023 multitier elections, especially focus on the work of the Electoral Commission for Sierra Leone (ECSL), and the United States Department’s issuance of visa restrictions on Sierra Leoneans involved in what they called election interference.

According to President Brig. (Rtd) Julius Maada Bio, “Elections are always contentious issues in wherever they happened in the world including the United States. But I did not have the power to issue visa restrictions; of course, that is the difference.”

The President explained: “Elections are conducted by the body mandated by our constitution and its operational mood is directed by the Public Elections Act. Normally, before elections take place, before we have our partners including the United States, EU, Britain and other organizations that are interested in democracy, a Steering Committee is put together and all stakeholders including political parties are represented in that Steering Committee.”

He added: “What they do is to look at everything that has to be done - the rules of the game to make sure that the Public Elections Act is clean and will lead to a credible election at the end of the day.
That was what pertained in Sierra Leone.”

President Bio said he was not a member of the Steering Committee and the only thing his Government did for the June 24 multitier elections is to make sure that whatever the election body (ECSL) asked for we provided them, including funds and security.

He emphasized that ECSL is an independent semi-autonomous body in the sense that Government does not deal with their daily operations, adding that they don’t control them at all and if they do, that will be interference, which he said his Government did not do.

President Bio averred that when the elections were all conducted, it was at the height of calling the results when the problem started.

“They (ECSL) had done all their calculations, collation and all the processes,” the President said, adding, “I was now requested by the United States to stop them (ECSL) from calling the results. So I don’t know who is accusing who of interference.”

President Bio said he declined to do what the United States requested and the results of the elections were eventually announced.