After weeks of tension following the first presidential election in Sierra Leone held on March 7, where no candidate out of the fourteen political parties that participated secured the mandatory 55 per cent of the total valid votes cast, Brigadier Julius Maada Bio [retired] won the run-off election held on March 31. He was sworn in as the fifth president of the country a few hours after being announced as the winner of the election last Wednesday.
Bio, born May 12, 1964, who briefly ruled Sierra Leone as a military Head of State, was candidate of the opposition Sierra Leone Peoples Party [SLPP] and he defeated Dr Samura Wilson Kamara, candidate of the ruling All Peoples Congress [APC], who was a former Foreign Affairs Minister. According to the result announced by Sierra Leone’s National Electoral Commission [NEC] last Wednesday in Freetown, Bio received 1,319,406 votes representing 51.81 per cent of the total 2,546,577 valid votes cast to defeat Samura Kamara who got 1,227, 171 votes, representing 48.19 per cent of the valid votes cast.
The chairman of NEC, Mohamed Conteh, who announced the result, said the national turn out in the election was 2,578,271 representing 81.11 registered voters, while 31,694 invalid votes were recorded. Bio won the run-off election with more than 92,000 vote’s margin against the APC candidate. Bio replaced Ernest Bai Koroma of APC, who has completed his maximum two terms of five years each.
In the first poll, Bio led the final result with 1,097,482 votes representing 43.3 per cent of the 2,537,122 valid votes cast in the election. Samura Kamara, who was born on April 30, 1951, came a close second in the first ballot with 1,083,748 votes, or 42.7 per cent of the total votes cast. The run-off election became necessary since none of the candidates was able to get 55per cent of the total votes cast, as provided by the country’s constitution. However in the run-off election 55 per cent was not required, only winning by a simple majority is enough.
In a speech shortly after being sworn in, Maada Bio appealed for national unity. He said, “We have only one country, Sierra Leone and we are one people. This is the dawn of a new era. The people of this great nation have voted to take a new direction.” The Commonwealth Observer Mission in Sierra Leone and the African Union Election Observer Mission in Sierra Leone (AUEOM) have described the country’s run-off election as largely peaceful and transparent. In their preliminary statement issued on April 2, the AU Observer Mission said, “The AUEOM applauds the people of Sierra Leone for their commitment to upholding democracy as demonstrated by their patience and civil conduct on Election Day.”
Presidential Muhammadu Buhari commended the people of Sierra Leone on the successful conduct of the election and urged all stakeholders to work together for peace, security and development of the country especially as the election had been concluded and in view of the trend of recently held peaceful elections in West Africa.
Going forward, we urge President Julius Maada Bio to consolidate on the peace the country enjoyed during the administration of Bai Koroma, after the country went through a brutal civil war from 1991-2002. It would likely get the country more support from foreign countries, particularly being severely battered by the deadly Ebola epidemic of recent years.
However in every election as there must be a winner, there must be a loser as well who is aggrieved. Samura Kamara disputed the outcome of the election, citing “ballot stuffing and over voting” among other irregularities. The courts are there to decide and anyone who disputes the results should pursue his rights through the courts. We congratulate Sierra Leone for having a peaceful election and we urge that nothing should be done by any party to take the country back to its ugly past of strife and civil war.
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