Julius Bio sworn in after winning Sierra Leone presidential run-off
Julius Maada Bio (L) takes the oath of office as new president of Sierra
Leone on April 4, 2018 in Freetown, Sierra Leone. AFP PHOTO | SAIDU BAH
Sierra Leone's opposition challenger Julius Maada Bio secured
his first term in office as a civilian
Wednesday when he was declared the winner of a controversial presidential run-off — but his opponent vowed to contest the result.
Wednesday when he was declared the winner of a controversial presidential run-off — but his opponent vowed to contest the result.
Bio, a former soldier who
briefly led a military junta more than two decades ago, won 51.81 per
cent of ballots in last month's election, according to official results.
He
beat incumbent deputy president Samura Kamara, who secured 48.19 per
cent of the vote, ending a decade in power for Kamara's All Peoples'
Congress (APC) in the poor West African nation.
Cheers and songs erupted among thousands of Bio's supporters who were gathered in the capital Freetown on Wednesday evening.
Shortly after the announcement, Bio was sworn in as president, handed a symbolic command baton by the country's top judge.
But
hopes for a smooth transition were soon thrown into doubt after Kamara
said he was rejecting the National Election Commission's results.
"We dispute the results and we will take legal action to correct
them," Kamara said in a televised address, calling on his supporters to
stay calm.
The results, he added, "do not reflect the
party's many concerns about massive ballot box stuffing, supernumerary
votes, and other irregularities."
Tallying
The
official results of the vote had been delayed by a dispute over the
method of tallying that left ballot papers from 11,000 polling stations
uncounted.
The campaign was characterised by ugly
verbal exchanges and sporadic violence with Bio accusing the APC of
using police intimidation against his party.
Police
reported a string of attacks on candidates and supporters on both sides
since the first round on March 7 — which Bio narrowly won — after which
Kamara declared that "the safety and security of Sierra Leone is in our
hands".
Bio, a straight-talking retired brigadier, has
blasted the government's closeness to China, while Kamara had presented
himself as a continuity candidate.
Although
international observers reported some "issues" during the March 31
second round that saw heightened security measures, the monitors
declared themselves "satisfied" with the overall conduct of the poll.
Earlier
Wednesday, Kamara supporters marched in Freetown, tearing down Bio
posters and alleging "foreign meddling" in the vote, an AFP reporter
said.
Security forces erected a cordon around Bio's
SLPP party headquarters, where hundreds of supporters had already begun
celebrating victory ahead of the expected official results.
A
total of 3.1 million people were registered to vote in the first
presidential poll since a 2014-2016 Ebola outbreak that killed 4,000
people.
Kamara's term was also marred by a mudslide that struck Freetown last year, killing hundreds of people.
Fragile economy
One
of the world's poorest nations despite huge mineral and diamond
deposits, Sierra Leone is recovering only gradually from war and
disease. Its economy remains fragile, with corruption widespread in the
former British colony.
Political loyalties are often divided along ethnic lines and traumatic memories of the 1991-2002 civil war run deep.
Bio
was in a group of young soldiers behind a 1992 coup that would install
their leader, Valentine Strasser, as the youngest head of state in the
world, at age 25.
He later took power but agreed to
step aside in 1996 for an elected civilian leader, and his subsequent
apologies for his role in the junta appear to have rehabilitated his
image.
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