SIERRA LEONE: Election campaigns re-start as Sierra Leone announces poll run-off on September 8

Record ID: 455412

  • Title: SIERRA LEONE: Election campaigns re-start as Sierra Leone announces poll run-off on September 8
  • Date: 27th August 2007
  • Summary: PEOPLE AND CARS IN STREET
  • Embargoed: 11th September 2007 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Sierra Leone
  • Country: Sierra Leone
  • Topics: Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVABH5K8ILJ2AP5FHRL93RLV354X
  • Story Text: A presidential run-off election has been declared in Sierra Leone after no candidate gained the 55 per cent majority needed to win. Sierra Leone held the first round of landmark elections on August 11, its first since U.N.
    peacekeepers left the war-torn country two years ago.
    Campaigning has begun in Sierra Leone for a presidential election runoff between main opposition leader Ernest Bai Koroma and Solomon Berewa of the ruling Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP).
    The National Electoral Committee (NEC) announced on Saturday (August 25) that neither candidate gained the 55 percent needed to win office outright in the opening round of the polls on August 11, the first since United Nations peacekeepers left the former British colony two years ago following a 1991-2002 civil war.
    "It is widely acknowledged that the results are credible, and that the elections has been conducted in a manner which is free, fair and transparent. However the process is not over. A second round in the presidential elections race will take place on Saturday the 8th of September 2007," said Christiana Thorpe, president of the NEC.
    Koroma of the All People's Congress (APC) took 44.3 percent and Berewa won 38.3 percent, according to the official final results announced on Saturday at the NEC news conference.
    Veteran politician Charles Margai of the People's Movement for Democratic Change (PMDC), regarded as a potential king-maker in the second round, won 13.9 percent.
    Margai, who defected from the SLPP when it chose Berewa as its presidential candidate, has said he will back Koroma on a joint campaign tour for the second round.
    Margai's endorsement will likely hand the northerner Koroma extra support in the southern part of the country -- Margai's home and the traditional heartland of SLPP support.
    But with many of Margai's followers former SLPP supporters, it is not certain all of them will back Koroma, meaning the run-off with Berewa is likely to be a closely-fought contest.
    The elections are seen as a test of Sierra Leone's recovery from more than a decade of civil war, one of modern Africa's most brutal conflicts which shocked the world with images of drugged-up child soldiers and mutilated civilians.
    "The elections went on peacefully without no problem, even the international observers have already predicted that the elections went on nicely without no problem of violence. We appreciate that greatly, then we are looking up for a run-off, then hopefully also we are hoping that the run-off also will go on with out no violence," said Mustapha Koroma, a Freetown tailor.
    Another Freetown resident, Foday Kallon was equally proud of his country's performance in the elections so far: "It's good for our democracy, we are copying the western area, the western people on democracy, but I think we have surprised them. When a nation votes 75 percent, it's a very good progress towards democracy," said Foday Kallon, an administrator.
    But the APC accused the ruling party of fraud, particularly in the east of the country, an ethnically-mixed diamond mining area which saw some of the heaviest fighting during the war.
    APC said a paramount chief in the region -- traditional leaders who are generally strong ruling party supporters -- had used mercenaries to intimidate voters in one district.
    The NEC said police were investigating the allegations of shooting on polling day.
    The commission has also rejected the contents of four ballot boxes after accusations of fraud in the eastern Kailahun district near the border with Liberia, where rebel fighters first attacked in 1991.
    The APC also performed strongly in a parliamentary election held alongside the presidential vote. The party took 59 of 112 seats in parliament, compared to 43 for the SLPP and 10 for the PMDC, final official results showed.
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