Updated: February 26, 2021
There is confusion in Sierra Leone over presidential election results. Both the opposition and the ruling parties have claimed electoral victory although the electoral body is yet to announce any results.
Opposition party in Sierra Leone said on Monday that its candidate Julius Maada Bio had won a presidential run-off but the ruling party said it held a “comfortable lead”. Sierra Leone’s National Elections Commission has not announced any results from the election.
The run-off was delayed several days due to a complaint of fraud lodged by a member of the ruling party.
Opposition party, the Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) said its own compilation of results had given its candidate a clear victory. But Reuters quoted a spokesman for the ruling All People’s Congress (APC) as saying that its candidate Samura Kamara was ahead based on a tabulation of around 83 percent of the ballots cast in Saturday’s poll.
Maada Bio and Kamara are competing to replace outgoing President Ernest Bai Koroma, who was not allowed to run due to constitutional term limits.
Reuters recalled that Maada Bio, who briefly ruled the West African country as head of a military junta in 1996, eked out a narrow victory in the first round on March 7 with 43.3 percent of the votes compared to 42.7 for Kamara.
According to the SLPP’s tabulation distributed at news conference in the capital Freetown, Maada Bio took 54.11 percent of votes in the run-off with Kamara garnering 45.89 percent.
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