Sierra Leone will hold a runoff presidential election in two weeks after the country’s 16 candidates failed to clinch the 55 percent of votes necessary to win in the first round. National Electoral Commission chair Mohammed Nfa'ali Conteh made the announcement at a press conference Tuesday night, a week after the country went to the polls.
“There will be second election, runoff, exclusively between the All People’s Congress presidential candidate Dr. Samura Matthew Wilson Kamara, and the Sierra Leone People’s Party presidential candidate Julius Maada Bio,” announced National Electoral Commission chair Mohammed Nfa'ali Conteh at a Tuesday press conference.
Current president Ernest Bai Koroma of the APC must step down this year after serving two terms.
Kamara, the former minister who is the ruling APC’s presidential pick, took 42.7 percent of the vote, slightly behind opposition SLPP’s Bio, who took 43.3 percent of the ballots. The result, announced one week after polls closed, following a tally process that was hit by numerous allegations of irregularities.
The National Electoral Commission recounted votes at 154 polling stations, while votes at 221 total polling stations were declared null and void due to overvoting.
He said that opposition candidate, Julius Maada Bio of Sierra Leone’s Peoples Party (SLPP) led the final result with 1,097,482 votes, making 43.3 per cent of the 2,537,122 valid votes cast in the polls.
Samura Kamara of ruling All Peoples Congress (APC) came a close second with 1,082, 748 votes, representing 42.7 per cent of the total votes cast.
Other results, according to Conteh, are Kolle Yemkulla of National Grand Coalition (NGC), 174,014 votes; Kamaraimba Mansaray, Alliance Democratic Party (ADP), 26,704 votes and Musa Tarawally, Citizens’ Democratic Party (CDP), 11,493 votes.
Similarly, he declared that Samuel Sam-Sumana of Coalition for Change (C4C) polled 87,720 votes; Chernoh Bah, National Democratic Alliance (NDA), 8,344 votes and John O’Dwyer, National Progressives Democrats (NPD), 34, 239 votes.
“Patrick Sandy, National Unity and Reconciliation Party (NURP) polled 2,318 votes; Baba Conteh, Peace and Liberation Party (PLP), 4, 233 votes; Francis Margai, Peoples Movement for Democratic Change (PMDC), 9,864 votes.
“Also, Victor Williams of Republic National Independent Party (RNIP) scored 2,555 votes; Jemba Ngobeh, Revolution United Front Party (RUFP), 12, 827 votes; Mohamed Sowa-Turay, United Democratic Movement, 5,695 votes.
“Henry Kabuta, United National Peoples Party (UNPP), got 3, 825 votes and Olufemi Claudius-Cole of Unity Party (UP), scored 3, 825 votes,” he added.
In the first round, international election observers expressed concern over incidents of violence and intimidation before and after the polls, including by police.
