Dr. Samura Kamara has been duly elected presidential candidate of the main opposition All Peoples Congress (APC) by a landslide victory of 1,382 valid votes.
His closest competitor, Richard Conteh polled 88 votes and the votes cast for all the 17 candidates who ran against Dr. Samura Kamara, including void votes, totaled 277.
The man widely presumed to be elected as Sierra Leone’s next president in June 24 presidential elections, now has the herculean and uncomfortable task to mend fences with his Comrades who many say fought too hard against him.
His biggest task will be to accept his resounding victory with magnanimity and work quickly to bring everyone on board a united and formidable APC.
It should never be lost on the APC that they are running against an incumbent that is fierce in its bellicosity as it is strategic in its operations and its capacity to organize what elections observers have described as criminal expeditions to rig the polls.
Though public opinion me be on the side of the APC, its victory at the polls on June 24, would be contingent upon the campaign but more so, elections machinery Samura Kamara and the new APC leaders would be willing to marshall. The critical element for the APC will be the quality of polling agents it will recruit and the extent to which these agents will be able to protect and ensure that every single votes cast in its favour will be counted! The APC must also make very good use of technology and thorough-bread media professionals to ably march and effectively counter the expected volume negative propaganda – misinformation, disinformation and downright lies the incumbent may deploy during this election cycle.
While the hall goes agog in last minute bidding for the running mate slot, w this choice should not be driven by emotion without benefit of the obvious implications relating to religion, electorate demographics, political experience and saviness on the dynamics of governing Sierra Leone. This is critical to prevent voter apathy especially in view of the fact that the margin that usually separates the APC and the SLPP is narrow. Even more so, these elections are going to a two-horse race between these two dominant parties.
Earlier, the flagbearers had their turn, eighteen of them, each had no more than three minutes. They all spoke beautifully, but Samura Kamara dowsed the hall with a witty submission referring to the current circumstances as a dual transition of the party and of his political journey.
Kamara asserted that he did not lose the elections in 2018 and that victory was stolen from him. He further said that since 2018, he has transitioned from being a technocrat to what he called ‘techno’-politician’.
Confident of victory not just at his party NDC but also the national polls, he affirmed that on June 24, he would emerge as the techno-president of the Republic of Sierra Leone.
His powerful submission received unparalleled popular acclimation!
