National Election Watch (NEW)

CIVIC EDUCATION CAMPAIGN FOR SIERRA LEONE

Baseline - the sample Using purposive sampling we targeted young

people between the ages of 16 – 35 years. We were looking for three categories of

people, economically active, politically active and those who haven’t had the chance to go to school.

51% should be females and 49% should be male which is the same as the national data

Freq % Freq % Gender Male 1068 48.79% Female 1118 51.07% Age 14-20 436 19.92% 21-26 653 29.83% 27-35 939 42.90% 35+ 13 0.59% Read Yes 1486 67.88% no 673 30.74% Write Yes 1497 68.39% no 680 31.06% Education No School 547 24.99% Some Primary 135 6.17%

Some vocational 54 2.47% Completed vocational 93 4.25%

Completed Secondary 390 17.82% Some university 145 6.62% Adult Education Courses 36 1.64% Occupation Farmer 141 6.44% Businessperson 294 13.43% Petty Trader 285 13.02% Student 507 23.16% Unskilled Worker 57 2.60% Skilled Worker 201 9.18% Health Worker 44 2.01% Officer Worker 72 3.29% Soldier/Police 25 1.14% Unemployed 125 5.71% Other 194 8.86%

And some of the findings Election Participation by WomenVoted in elections

Significantly Below Average (less than 85% of national average) Below Average (85%-95% of national) Average (95%-105% of national) Above Average (105%-115%) Significantly Above Average (greater than 115% of

national)

And …………….At the national level 62.68% of respondents are not members of any political party, while 36.55% of respondents were members of political parties

And ….At national level about 30% of women are members of political parties and about 70% are not members of political parties

For access to information…85% of respondents revealed that radio was the predominant way to access information during elections, followed by word of mouth 44.45% and meetings 32.66%. Female respondents sought out information through the same sources as men.

Paying taxes?83% of the respondents paid taxes whilst 16% did not. The main reasons for not paying taxes were that they were either below the age of payment of taxes (i.e. <18 yrs), their husbands did not pay for them, they did not have money to pay taxes because they were unemployed or were still in schooling therefore cannot afford to pay.

Mainly this is paying of local tax!

Leadership qualities

having connections to enhance development (>40%), some amount of money (<45%) and should have power (>8%).

And corruption . . . Majority of all respondents (81%) responded that they don’t report corrupt practices in their communities while 18% responded that they have reported corrupt practices at some point. Same for women and men

Membership of political parties30 % are members and 60 are non members

Expected services from gov’t?68% of the respondents highlighted roads as key among

services expected from the government followed by 68% of education and 63% for health care. For the taxpaying respondents, 70% highlighted roads, 68% education, 65% health care 53% water supply, 45% employment creation for citizens as expected services from the government.

For the women respondents 69% highlighted educations as priority service to be delivered by government, 65% for development of road networks, 61% for health care. This shows that the sequence of which women want service delivered is slightly different from the trend the general respondents highlighted.

Afraid during elections?

This shows at national level, 61.31% of the respondents said they are afraid during elections, whilst 31.70% agreed that they are not afraid during elections.

Even party members are afraid …

at national level 54% of the respondents that were political party members disclosed that they were afraid, 34% were not afraid and 10% never responded

And at district level …..

To sum up major findings Lack of knowledge on why to vote (not how to vote) needs to be

addressed through effective education strategies Radio is seen as best way to reach target populations (both in urban

and rural areas) Elections seen as best method in selecting representative in

government Communication and consultation from District Council’s is essential to

ensure involvement and accountability Preferred leadership qualities are known, yet are not seen as reasons

to vote for a candidate

Governance of Political parties and their guiding rules

45% of all the respondents have knowledge that there are rules to guide the conduct of campaigns in elections, while 54% of respondents do not have knowledge about the rules guiding campaigns during elections.

Governance of Political parties and their guiding rules

69% of the respondents who said they belonged to political parties confirmed that they had knowledge of the rules guiding political campaigns during elections while 29% denied having any knowledge.