Entries from July 2008
July 5, 2008 was an important day for the people of Sierra Leone. After weeks of preparation and anticipation, citizens went to the polls to vote for their local councillors, mayors and district chairpersons.
It was also an exciting day for Rachael Borlase and Mackay Taggart, two JHR trainers based in the country’s northern city of Makeni. For weeks, the two had been hosting election training sessions and story meetings with local reporters, helping them develop a plan to provide fair, balanced and accurate election coverage.
So how did the big day unfold? Rachael and Mackay tracked the key events of the day as they travelled the region, visiting reporters and the polling stations where they were posted.
Mackay – 8:30 am – As I head out the door on my way to Radio Maria, I decide to walk to the station. Most mornings my first order of business upon leaving the house is to flag down a passing motorbike taxi, but today, I want to use the 30-minute trek across town to soak up the Election Day vibe. While it’s a Saturday morning - and ordinarily local commerce would already be full-swing - today is quiet. Upon order by police, all shops and businesses must remain closed while voting is underway. Not even the young boys who normally hawk loaves of bread at the end of our street can be found. It’s not until I pass my first polling station that the action begins to build. While the primary school-turned-polling station is hardly packed – there’s a small line of one or two people waiting to show their voter ID – there is a definite buzz. Election monitors from Liberia and military police with automatic weapons at their side stand outside the polling station. This is the first of many occasions where I’ll subtly be reminded that it’s not a Canadian municipal election I’m witnessing.
Rachael – 9:00 am – Radio Mankneh goes to air with local elections coverage. For the next three hours, reporters will play live hits from various polling stations in Bombali. I visit Makeni City Hall, the biggest voting centre in the district, to help Alimamy Turray file the first report scheduled for 9:45 am; but he’s not there. Voters trickle in to cast their ballots; National Electoral Commission (NEC) officials and international observers were expecting an influx. A United Nations human rights officer complains about the lack of privacy screens at the stations. Apparently NEC forgot to deliver them. Turray arrives by 9:30 am, not having slept in 24-hours. We scribble together a report, and he musters two minutes of energy to sound like he’s been in the thick of the election since voting started.
Mackay – 10:30 am – Radio Maria is quiet this morning. All reporters, station staff and volunteers have been assigned to different polling stations in varying corners of the country. I’m sitting in my office listening to the station’s live coverage when Radio Maria’s assistant station manager, Ezekiel Tulley, pokes his head into my office. “Mackay, we want you to come on-air and serve as our international correspondent,” he says. I enter the studio, and before I can put my headphones on, the hosts toss me the first question. “How do elections in Sierra Leone compare to elections you’ve covered in Canada?” he asks. After a bit of thought and a couple minutes of babbling I conclude that aside from some logistical differences (Canadian voters rarely cast their ballots in mud huts with chickens wandering at their feet), the process is really quite similar. Democracy, in a sense, is a kind of “one size fits all” concept. After years of rebel rule and military dictatorships, Sierra Leone has seemingly taken to the democratic process. With this, comes the tedious and lengthy process of elections. I use a cryptic analogy involving the act of watching a caterpillar turn into a butterfly – beautiful in theory, but boring to watch. The comparison draws some blank stares.
Rachael – 11:00 am – I spend the better part of the morning on the back of random motorbikes visiting polling stations around Makeni. Reporters are where they should be, and are doing their best to find interesting stories and reliable sources. I arrive at Foday Primary School, a polling station in one of Makeni’s more populated neighbourhoods. Not one voter is there, and neither is Mankneh reporter Fatmata Kuyatteh. Polling staff lounge and nap on wooden benches; some feast on a giant bowl of rice and soup. In the twenty minutes I have been here, only three elderly women in brightly coloured and largely printed dresses come to vote. Station Manager Ahmed Mansaray estimates 25% of registered voters here have cast their ballots. One voter says people aren’t bothered to vote because it’s an APC shoe-in. Kuyatteh calls; her baby has malaria so she can’t come to work. Then the station calls. Can I do the hit instead? For the second time today, I scribble together a report and go live in my best — but broken — Krio.
Mackay – 11:15 am – It’s time to take to the streets. Ezekiel and I head out in the Radio Maria jeep to check on the reporters at various polling stations in the area. Journalists in Sierra Leone wear two hats on Election Day: not only do they report on the event, but they also act as impartial domestic observers ensuring that the voting process is free and fair. As a result, they are expected to be present at the polling stations from the time election staff arrive in the morning, until the time when all votes are counted at the end of the day. Over the course of about three hours, we check in on nearly ten reporters throughout many polling stations. People have now started to talk about the low voter turnout. At nearly all the stations we visit, there are — at most — half-a-dozen people standing around waiting to vote. Apparently the pace had been similar for the entire morning. Last summer’s national election was heralded a huge success; record numbers of Sierra Leoneans headed to the polls. Many people thought this energy would carry over to this year’s local elections, but it looks like that might not be the case. Nonetheless, it is exciting for me to be out and witnessing the process — even if not everyone is participating.
Rachael – 1:30 pm – Our local programming stops between 12:00 and 3:00 pm. I meet BBC journalism trainer Claire Ziwa for lunch at Ibrahim’s, Makeni’s Lebanese restaurant. Ziwa spent the morning in the Mankneh studio, helping host Amara Bangura fill the show with live reports, political tolerance promos and pop music. “It’s going smoothly [this year], but not nearly as exciting as last year” she says, reflecting on the August 2007 presidential elections. “Hundreds of people lined up to vote hours before the polling stations even opened. There was a sense of civic pride that’s missing this time.” I can’t help but feel the hours of election training we gave to reporters won’t come to fruition; there’s just not enough happening. Meanwhile, Mankneh’s youngest reporter, Alhaji Bah, is nowhere to be found. A hard worker and talented journalist, I assigned Bah to a remote village more than 100 kms away. He was supposed to file a report before lunch, but we can’t get him on the phone.
Mackay – 2:30 pm – It’s early afternoon when we reach a polling station in a small village on the outskirts of Magbroka town. Now at the eighth or ninth stop on our route, our visits are becoming a little monotonous — not to mention tiring — in the midday sun. I notice an old man – cane in one hand, ballot in the other – slowly making his way toward the polling booth. This gentleman has to be at least in his seventies, perhaps older — meaning he’s lived through colonialism, independence, military rule, rebel rule, civil war and now democracy. The fact that he still has enough faith in the future of the country to come out and vote – a process, which for him, quite clearly was labour intensive – is inspiring.
Rachael – 6:00 pm – I’m in the studios at Radio Mankneh with program host Amara Bangura. Polling stations closed at 5:00 pm. Unofficial results start to trickle in. In Sierra Leone, journalists scramble to announce unofficial winners by tallying numbers from each polling station in every ward. The process is messy and full of holes. Reporters rarely get to each counting station, their math is often wrong and their phone credit runs out before they can finish delivering the information. All of this happens live on air, usually ending with Bangura saying, “hello, hello, HELLO?” to a dead phone line. I still can’t get through to Alhaji Bah and I’m starting to worry.
Mackay – 9:00 pm – Polls have been closed now for the better part of four hours. Unofficial results are starting to roll in from reporters stationed all across the country. Sierra Leone’s National Electoral Commission will not be releasing official results for weeks, so the media serves the public as the only source of timely information regarding election outcomes. I, along with six other local colleagues, have been designated by Radio Maria as desk officers, responsible for contacting reporters in the field, and tabulating the results they file. Cell phones pressed to our ears, pens in hand and dozens of scraps of paper covering the table in front of us, we spend the next three hours fighting poor reception and — in my case — language barriers, as we work to get results on air.
Rachael – 10:00 pm – I’m buried in scraps of paper displaying tallied results that no longer make sense. Bangura and I decide to pack it in. It’s pouring rain, so I sit on the station’s stoop and crack open a Heineken. I think I’ll go to Alhaji’s place on my way home. My phone rings. Bah begins by apologizing profusely for missing his live hits. “My motorbike ran out of gas 20 kms outside the village, and I had to push it all the way there,” I can barely hear him over the blasting thunder. He’s safe at home, and that’s all that matters. An hour later, the rain lets up. I venture home with some beer and Pringles, excited to swap Election Day adventures with Mackay.
Mackay – 11:30 pm – It has been a long day, perhaps one of the longest I’ve had in Sierra Leone — but a great one. By all accounts, the election was a success nationwide, with no reports of arrests or violence. I leave the station as the vote counting begins to wrap up. As I head home on the back of a motorbike, I hear the squawk of battery-powered radios coming from bedrooms and front stoops throughout town. Devoid of streetlights, the core of Makeni sits in darkness, yet there remains something electric about the evening. Today, the people of Sierra Leone exercised their right to vote — an activity that would have been all but impossible just five short years ago.
Sierra Leone’s Local Government Elections in Numbers
National Voter Turnout – 38.8% Votes Cast Nationwide – 1,056,440
Candidates Elected in the country’s Northern Region
All People’s Congress (APC) – 85 seats
Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) – 2
Independents - 13
Results at 10 Polling Stations in the Northern region were invalidated due to ballot stuffing resulting in voter turnout in excess of 100%
Tags: Sierra Leone
July 5, 2008 was an important day for the people of Sierra Leone. After weeks of preparation and anticipation, citizens went to the polls to vote for their local councillors, mayors and district chairpersons.
It was also an exciting day for Rachael Borlase and Mackay Taggart, two JHR trainers based in the country’s northern city of Makeni. For weeks, the two had been hosting election training sessions and story meetings with local reporters, helping them develop a plan to provide fair, balanced and accurate election coverage.
So how did the big day unfold? Rachael and Mackay tracked the key events of the day as they travelled the region, visiting reporters and the polling stations where they were posted.
Mackay – 8:30 am – As I head out the door on my way to Radio Maria, I decide to walk to the station. Most mornings my first order of business upon leaving the house is to flag down a passing motorbike taxi, but today, I want to use the 30-minute trek across town to soak up the Election Day vibe. While it’s a Saturday morning - and ordinarily local commerce would already be full-swing - today is quiet. Upon order by police, all shops and businesses must remain closed while voting is underway. Not even the young boys who normally hawk loaves of bread at the end of our street can be found. It’s not until I pass my first polling station that the action begins to build. While the primary school-turned-polling station is hardly packed – there’s a small line of one or two people waiting to show their voter ID – there is a definite buzz. Election monitors from Liberia and military police with automatic weapons at their side stand outside the polling station. This is the first of many occasions where I’ll subtly be reminded that it’s not a Canadian municipal election I’m witnessing.
Rachael – 9:00 am – Radio Mankneh goes to air with local elections coverage. For the next three hours, reporters will play live hits from various polling stations in Bombali. I visit Makeni City Hall, the biggest voting centre in the district, to help Alimamy Turray file the first report scheduled for 9:45 am; but he’s not there. Voters trickle in to cast their ballots; National Electoral Commission (NEC) officials and international observers were expecting an influx. A United Nations human rights officer complains about the lack of privacy screens at the stations. Apparently NEC forgot to deliver them. Turray arrives by 9:30 am, not having slept in 24-hours. We scribble together a report, and he musters two minutes of energy to sound like he’s been in the thick of the election since voting started.
Mackay – 10:30 am – Radio Maria is quiet this morning. All reporters, station staff and volunteers have been assigned to different polling stations in varying corners of the country. I’m sitting in my office listening to the station’s live coverage when Radio Maria’s assistant station manager, Ezekiel Tulley, pokes his head into my office. “Mackay, we want you to come on-air and serve as our international correspondent,” he says. I enter the studio, and before I can put my headphones on, the hosts toss me the first question. “How do elections in Sierra Leone compare to elections you’ve covered in Canada?” he asks. After a bit of thought and a couple minutes of babbling I conclude that aside from some logistical differences (Canadian voters rarely cast their ballots in mud huts with chickens wandering at their feet), the process is really quite similar. Democracy, in a sense, is a kind of “one size fits all” concept. After years of rebel rule and military dictatorships, Sierra Leone has seemingly taken to the democratic process. With this, comes the tedious and lengthy process of elections. I use a cryptic analogy involving the act of watching a caterpillar turn into a butterfly – beautiful in theory, but boring to watch. The comparison draws some blank stares.
Rachael – 11:00 am – I spend the better part of the morning on the back of random motorbikes visiting polling stations around Makeni. Reporters are where they should be, and are doing their best to find interesting stories and reliable sources. I arrive at Foday Primary School, a polling station in one of Makeni’s more populated neighbourhoods. Not one voter is there, and neither is Mankneh reporter Fatmata Kuyatteh. Polling staff lounge and nap on wooden benches; some feast on a giant bowl of rice and soup. In the twenty minutes I have been here, only three elderly women in brightly coloured and largely printed dresses come to vote. Station Manager Ahmed Mansaray estimates 25% of registered voters here have cast their ballots. One voter says people aren’t bothered to vote because it’s an APC shoe-in. Kuyatteh calls; her baby has malaria so she can’t come to work. Then the station calls. Can I do the hit instead? For the second time today, I scribble together a report and go live in my best — but broken — Krio.
Mackay – 11:15 am – It’s time to take to the streets. Ezekiel and I head out in the Radio Maria jeep to check on the reporters at various polling stations in the area. Journalists in Sierra Leone wear two hats on Election Day: not only do they report on the event, but they also act as impartial domestic observers ensuring that the voting process is free and fair. As a result, they are expected to be present at the polling stations from the time election staff arrive in the morning, until the time when all votes are counted at the end of the day. Over the course of about three hours, we check in on nearly ten reporters throughout many polling stations. People have now started to talk about the low voter turnout. At nearly all the stations we visit, there are — at most — half-a-dozen people standing around waiting to vote. Apparently the pace had been similar for the entire morning. Last summer’s national election was heralded a huge success; record numbers of Sierra Leoneans headed to the polls. Many people thought this energy would carry over to this year’s local elections, but it looks like that might not be the case. Nonetheless, it is exciting for me to be out and witnessing the process — even if not everyone is participating.
Rachael – 1:30 pm – Our local programming stops between 12:00 and 3:00 pm. I meet BBC journalism trainer Claire Ziwa for lunch at Ibrahim’s, Makeni’s Lebanese restaurant. Ziwa spent the morning in the Mankneh studio, helping host Amara Bangura fill the show with live reports, political tolerance promos and pop music. “It’s going smoothly [this year], but not nearly as exciting as last year” she says, reflecting on the August 2007 presidential elections. “Hundreds of people lined up to vote hours before the polling stations even opened. There was a sense of civic pride that’s missing this time.” I can’t help but feel the hours of election training we gave to reporters won’t come to fruition; there’s just not enough happening. Meanwhile, Mankneh’s youngest reporter, Alhaji Bah, is nowhere to be found. A hard worker and talented journalist, I assigned Bah to a remote village more than 100 kms away. He was supposed to file a report before lunch, but we can’t get him on the phone.
Mackay – 2:30 pm – It’s early afternoon when we reach a polling station in a small village on the outskirts of Magbroka town. Now at the eighth or ninth stop on our route, our visits are becoming a little monotonous — not to mention tiring — in the midday sun. I notice an old man – cane in one hand, ballot in the other – slowly making his way toward the polling booth. This gentleman has to be at least in his seventies, perhaps older — meaning he’s lived through colonialism, independence, military rule, rebel rule, civil war and now democracy. The fact that he still has enough faith in the future of the country to come out and vote – a process, which for him, quite clearly was labour intensive – is inspiring.
Rachael – 6:00 pm – I’m in the studios at Radio Mankneh with program host Amara Bangura. Polling stations closed at 5:00 pm. Unofficial results start to trickle in. In Sierra Leone, journalists scramble to announce unofficial winners by tallying numbers from each polling station in every ward. The process is messy and full of holes. Reporters rarely get to each counting station, their math is often wrong and their phone credit runs out before they can finish delivering the information. All of this happens live on air, usually ending with Bangura saying, “hello, hello, HELLO?” to a dead phone line. I still can’t get through to Alhaji Bah and I’m starting to worry.
Mackay – 9:00 pm – Polls have been closed now for the better part of four hours. Unofficial results are starting to roll in from reporters stationed all across the country. Sierra Leone’s National Electoral Commission will not be releasing official results for weeks, so the media serves the public as the only source of timely information regarding election outcomes. I, along with six other local colleagues, have been designated by Radio Maria as desk officers, responsible for contacting reporters in the field, and tabulating the results they file. Cell phones pressed to our ears, pens in hand and dozens of scraps of paper covering the table in front of us, we spend the next three hours fighting poor reception and — in my case — language barriers, as we work to get results on air.
Rachael – 10:00 pm – I’m buried in scraps of paper displaying tallied results that no longer make sense. Bangura and I decide to pack it in. It’s pouring rain, so I sit on the station’s stoop and crack open a Heineken. I think I’ll go to Alhaji’s place on my way home. My phone rings. Bah begins by apologizing profusely for missing his live hits. “My motorbike ran out of gas 20 kms outside the village, and I had to push it all the way there,” I can barely hear him over the blasting thunder. He’s safe at home, and that’s all that matters. An hour later, the rain lets up. I venture home with some beer and Pringles, excited to swap Election Day adventures with Mackay.
Mackay – 11:30 pm – It has been a long day, perhaps one of the longest I’ve had in Sierra Leone — but a great one. By all accounts, the election was a success nationwide, with no reports of arrests or violence. I leave the station as the vote counting begins to wrap up. As I head home on the back of a motorbike, I hear the squawk of battery-powered radios coming from bedrooms and front stoops throughout town. Devoid of streetlights, the core of Makeni sits in darkness, yet there remains something electric about the evening. Today, the people of Sierra Leone exercised their right to vote — an activity that would have been all but impossible just five short years ago.
Sierra Leone’s Local Government Elections in Numbers
National Voter Turnout – 38.8% Votes Cast Nationwide – 1,056,440
Candidates Elected in the country’s Northern Region
All People’s Congress (APC) – 85 seats
Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) – 2
Independents - 13
Results at 10 Polling Stations in the Northern region were invalidated due to ballot stuffing resulting in voter turnout in excess of 100%
Tags: Sierra Leone
JHR Trainer, Rachael Borlase, is currently working on a six-part series about life and work in Sierra Leone.
Her stories are being broadcast on the CBC throughout the Maritimes.
In this segment, Rachael tells us about her life outside of work – the adjustments she’s making, the characters she’s meeting and the adventure of it all.
Tags: Sierra Leone
Sierra Leoneans don’t have the same love affair with weather stories that Canadians do. Locals don’t gab about the extreme heat, torrential rains or heavy winds. Radio stations don’t report on it either. In Makeni, there’s no source for weather reports or forecasts.
But that doesn’t mean the weather isn’t newsworthy. As the rainy season heightens, downpours are almost daily occurrences. Just last week, Makeni was hit by the worst storm it has seen this year. Rain pounded homes, businesses and streets throughout the night. Winds whipped through the city, tearing up shoddy structures that pass as dwellings.
In the morning, the destruction was most apparent on Rogbaneh Road. Shops along the main business strip were severely damaged and millions of Leones in merchandise were destroyed. Business owners and city workers spent the better part of the day sifting through rubble and searching for anything that might be salvageable.
At 9 am, we received a call from a local reporter. “I have a big story,” said Amara Bangura. Thirty minutes later, we were on Rogbaneh Road with two reporters.
Joseph Bangura reports for Radio Mari:
Tags: Sierra Leone
Sierra Leoneans don’t have the same love affair with weather stories that Canadians do. Locals don’t gab about the extreme heat, torrential rains or heavy winds. Radio stations don’t report on it either. In Makeni, there’s no source for weather reports or forecasts.
But that doesn’t mean the weather isn’t newsworthy. As the rainy season heightens, downpours are almost daily occurrences. Just last week, Makeni was hit by the worst storm it has seen this year. Rain pounded homes, businesses and streets throughout the night. Winds whipped through the city, tearing up shoddy structures that pass as dwellings.
In the morning, the destruction was most apparent on Rogbaneh Road. Shops along the main business strip were severely damaged and millions of Leones in merchandise were destroyed. Business owners and city workers spent the better part of the day sifting through rubble and searching for anything that might be salvageable.
At 9 am, we received a call from a local reporter. “I have a big story,” said Amara Bangura. Thirty minutes later, we were on Rogbaneh Road with two reporters.
Amara Bangura reports for Radio Mankeh:
Tags: Sierra Leone
Lucienne Voahirana is the director of Radio Mampita in Fianarantsoa, a regional capital of Madagascar. She explains what a rural radio station does and does not do.
Tags: Madagascar
Amiko Philibert is one of two main journalists at Radio Magneva, a rural radio station in Madagascar’s regional capital, Morondava. The city has numerous problems, notably chronically bad roads. She explains why she is hesitant to criticize the authorities.
Tags: Madagascar
Florentin Razanajatovo is director of the rural radio station Radio Magneva in Madagascar’s regional capital, Morondava. He explains what journalism is like outside the capital and the problems journalists face in trying to exercise their right to freedom of expression.
Tags: Madagascar
Florentin Razanajatovo is director of the rural radio station Radio Magneva in Madagascar’s regional capital, Morondava. He tells us the problems journalists encounter in trying to access information in Madagascar.
Tags: Madagascar
Florentin Razanajatovo is director of the rural radio station Radio Magneva in Madagascar’s regional capital, Morondava. He tells us what journalist associations exist, and what problems they face in Madagascar.
Tags: Madagascar
