The chief outreach officer of the National Electoral Commission (NEC), Miatta French, has told Awoko that only five political parties have sent in their lists of candidates for the parliamentary elections.
She revealed that Tuesday was the deadline NEC should have received the list of parliamentary candidates from all registered political parties but as of the end of that day, they only received lists from the Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP), All People’s Congress (APC), People’s Movement for Democratic Change (PMDC), National Democratic Party (NDA) and the People’s Liberation Party (PLP).
“This technically means that these parties are the only ones that would take part in the parliamentary elections”, she inferred.
The chief outreach officer revealed that the Revolutionary United Front Party (RUFP), the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and the United National People’s Party (UNPP) registered with the Political Parties Registration Commission (PPRC) to contest the 2007 elections but did not meet the Tuesday deadline.
But she refused to say categorically that because these political parties had not met the deadline they would not contest in the parliamentary elections.
“I don’t know if the Commission will extend the deadline for these political parties that have not yet submitted their lists of candidates for parliamentary elections, so I will not say as of now that these parties are not likely to contest for the parliamentary elections,” Miatta French accentuated.
The National Electoral Commission has also announced that official campaign period will start on July 10 and end on August 9. And that on July 2-6 all completed parliamentary candidature nominations forms and objections should be submitted to NEC, and on July 3-7 all completed presidential candidature nomination forms should be received by the Commission.