President Julius Maada Bio received re-election within the West African nation of Sierra Leone on Tuesday, in response to the nation’s electoral fee, amid considerations over lack of transparency within the vote tallying and sporadic episodes of violence.
Mr. Bio took 56 % of the vote, a shock victory within the first spherical by which most observers had predicted that no candidate would cross the 55 % threshold wanted to keep away from a runoff. Samura Kamara, the main opposition candidate, completed second with 41 % of the vote.
As Mr. Bio was rapidly sworn in — simply an hour after the official outcomes had been introduced — his supporters thronged the streets of Freetown, the capital, sporting inexperienced T-shirts, his social gathering’s shade, and chanting his identify.
Mr. Kamara rejected the end result, calling the outcomes not credible, however didn’t say how he may reply. The election, held on Saturday, was a rematch of the 2018 contest, by which Mr. Bio defeated Mr. Kamara, an economist and former authorities minister, by a decent margin. But Sierra Leone finds itself in a extra dire scenario than 5 years in the past, grappling with report ranges of inflation and unemployment and a few of the highest ranges of meals insecurity in West Africa.
Mr. Bio, 59, known as on Sierra Leoneans to provide him 5 extra years to pursue an training initiative that has despatched a further a million kids to high school. But he has additionally been accused of overseeing violent repression of protests, together with final summer season when greater than two dozen folks died in demonstrations in opposition to rising costs.
Mr. Bio is a former army officer who took half in two coups throughout Sierra Leone’s civil warfare within the Nineteen Nineties. He briefly dominated the nation in 1996 as the pinnacle of a army junta, however handed energy to an elected president months later.
Voter turnout gave the impression to be excessive at round 77 %, in response to the electoral fee. Over 3.3 million voters had registered to vote within the nation of 8.4 million, most of them beneath age 35.
“Participation is usually very high because young people want change,” mentioned Ishmael Beah, a Sierra Leonean author who’s essential of Mr. Bio’s authorities. “That is, until they realize that nothing is going to change.”
The voting on Saturday was largely peaceable, however tensions rose on Sunday when safety forces surrounded the headquarters of Mr. Kamara’s social gathering, the All People’s Congress, as supporters had been celebrating native outcomes. (The vote on Saturday was additionally for native and parliamentary officers.)
The police fired tear fuel and a girl was shot useless. Party officers have accused safety forces of firing reside rounds, which the pinnacle of the Sierra Leonean police has denied.
On Monday, each Mr. Kamara’s and Mr. Bio’s events predicted a victory, elevating fears of additional tensions when the ultimate outcomes had been launched.
International election observers have additionally voiced considerations concerning the lack of transparency throughout the counting course of.
National Election Watch, an impartial monitoring physique, had mentioned earlier on Tuesday that no candidate would win 55 % of the vote within the first spherical, based mostly on the info it had collected and which it mentioned matched provisional outcomes launched by the nation’s electoral fee a day earlier.
According to the official outcomes, nevertheless, greater than 1.56 million folks voted for Mr. Bio — barely above the 55 % threshold.
Election observers from the Carter Center famous a number of voting irregularities, together with damaged seals and open poll packing containers that ought to have been closed, mentioned Cameron R. Hume, a former U.S. ambassador and the pinnacle of the middle’s statement mission.
“The voting went pretty well — people showed up, they wanted to vote and they wanted their voice to be heard,” Mr. Hume mentioned in a phone interview from Freetown.
But that couldn’t be mentioned of the depend of ballots, Mr. Hume added. “There’s a lot of questions left on the table.”
Joseph Johnson contributed reporting from Freetown, Sierra Leone.
Source: www.nytimes.com