Prior to the elections in June 2023, the Electoral Commission for Sierra Leone (ECSL) distributed a total of 135 seats among 16 districts throughout the nation. Four seats have been added to the Eastern Province, two seats have been removed from the North-Eastern Province, and one seat has been removed from the North-Western Province as a result of the revised distribution.
The Southern Province will go from 27 to 31 seats, an increase of four. The Western Area, particularly the Urban District, experienced a decrease of five seats, the most enormous number of seats lost.
With 13 MPs each, Kenema and Bo will have the most seats in Parliament, according to the revised allocation. While the Western Urban District, home to the nation's capital Freetown, saw a drastic reduction in seat allocation from 20 in 2016 to just 11, the Western Rural District will have the second-highest number of seats with 12.
According to reports, the new distribution is based on the results of Statistics Sierra Leone's midterm census, which was performed in 2021. The country's Data Department claims that the eastern Kenema District has a larger population than the capital, a claim that most residents have rejected on the grounds that they were never tallied.
Some of the Department's enumerators stated that some locals, particularly in the major opposition strongholds, refused to be counted.
Due to reduced seat allocation in some of their strongholds, the main opposition All People's Congress may lose many seats in Parliament under the new allocation.
Experts have nonetheless anticipated that the main opposition, whose strongholds comprise 67 seats while the incumbent would have 64 seats, may still control the house.