Julius Maada Bio, the incumbent president of Sierra Leone, has been declared the winner of the June 24 general election.
The declaration was made by the chief electoral commissioner of the Electoral Commission Sierra Leone, ECSL, Mohamed Kenewui Konneh on Tuesday.
Konneh said Bio was re-elected with 56.17 per cent of Saturday’s vote. His top challenger, Samura Kamara of the All People’s Congress, APC, came second with 41.16 per cent.
Thirteen candidates contested for the presidential seat, including incumbent president Bio, who contested for a second term of five years in office under the umbrella of the Sierra Leone People’s Party, SLPP.
Bio was elected president in 2018 after defeating Kamara in a run-off election. On Saturday, he secured victory by polling over 56 per cent of the votes to avoid a run-off.
Meanwhile, the vote tallying had already been disputed by the APC, which condemned, in a statement dated June 26, an alleged lack of inclusiveness, transparency and responsibility by the ECSL.
The party pointed to the lack of information about which polling stations or districts the election results were coming from, saying it “will not accept these fake and cooked up results.”
In a release dated 26th June 2023, the main opposition, All Peoples Congress Party has expressed its dissatisfaction over the 60% result that was announced by the Electoral Commission (@ECsalone) earlier today; the Party has staunchly rejected the said result based on several… pic.twitter.com/Xjst9oATVR
— Francis Turay (@FrancisTuray8) June 26, 2023
In a follow-up statement, it alleged “over-voting” in some areas and said the party “continues to reject” the “fabricated results” and “reaffirms our victory.”
The European Union Election Observation Mission, EU EOM, in Sierra Leone, stated in its preliminary observation report that “Voters’ commitment to a democratic process was challenged by violence and lack of transparency at critical stages of elections.”
The observers said that a lack of transparency and communication by the electoral authority had led to mistrust in the electoral process, adding that they witnessed violence at seven polling stations during voting hours and at three others during the closing and counting stages.
Saturday’s election was the fifth since the end of Sierra Leone’s civil war in 2002.
