Sierra Leone Power re-run
President Maada faces the enormous burden of leading a deeply fractured society that is uneasy with itself as he takes office for a second term.
After incumbent President Julius Maada Bio was proclaimed the winner and immediately inaugurated for a second term in the West African country, the biggest opposition party in Sierra Leone demanded a rerun of the presidential election that took place over the previous weekend.
The Chief Justice administered Julius Maada Bio’s oath of office as President of Sierra Leone for a second term after the National Electoral Commission certified Bio the victor with 56.17% of the vote versus Samura Kamara of the main opposition APC party’s 41.16%. Samura Kamara has now lost two presidential elections against Julius Maada Bio. Samura suffered a three percentage point loss in 2018. He dropped 15 percentage points in the June 26th General election.
Samura received 1,148,262 votes, whereas Julius Maada Bio received 1,566,932 votes, according to the ECSL. 10,883 illegitimate votes were removed from the 2,789,808 total votes cast throughout all polling places in the nation.
After three days of political unrest and serious violence in several regions of the nation, particularly in opposition strongholds where security forces shot and killed numerous people, the ECSL made its pronouncement.
The Sierra Leonean electoral commission has been accused of cooperating with Bio’s party to rig the results by the opposition All People’s Congress party, or APC, in a statement. The party also demanded that Mohamed Konneh, the head of the election commission, and his whole staff resign. There have been worries that citizens of Sierra Leone who disagree with the results of the election may demonstrate.
