Opposition leader sworn in as Sierra Leone president
A FORMER military commander and rebel leader who later went to graduate school in the United States and Britain was declared the winner of Sierra Leone’s presidential runoff on Wednesday after a campaign season marred by reports of violence and irregularities.
The winner, Julius Maada Bio, was immediately sworn in as the country’s president Wednesday night. The country’s chief justice, Abdulai Charm, said the inauguration needed to be held quickly to avoid a power vacuum and was in compliance with the country’s constitution.
Candidates from 16 parties ran for president, but in the first round of voting last month, no one won the 55 percent required to avoid a second round.
Bio, 53, from the Sierra Leone People’s Party, received 51.8 percent of the vote in the runoff on Saturday, narrowly defeating Samura Kamara from the governing party, the All People’s Congress, who won 48.2 percent, according to the Electoral Commission.
Bio succeeds President Ernest Bai Koroma, who is stepping down after serving a second five-year term. His tenure was punctuated by tragedy, including an outbreak of the Ebola virus and a deadly mudslide, in a country that is still recovering from a civil war that ended in 2002 after the deaths of more than 50,000 people.
In recent days, the candidates exchanged accusations of tribalism and even charges of attempts at “ethnic cleansing”. Sierra Leone, a former British colony with a population of nearly 7 million, has long been divided along tribal and regional lines.
Several episodes of violence were reported at political rallies this year, and at least one death and several injuries were recorded. A gunshot was heard close to Bio’s home after polls were closed Saturday. For a time, internet service was suspended, as well as international phone service.
Andrew Lavali, the executive director of the Institute for Governance Reform, an independent research group in Sierra Leone, said the presence of heavily armed soldiers in the capital, Freetown, and elsewhere, created an atmosphere of fear and intimidation for many voters.
“The military presence was even higher than what the country had during the 1996 elections, when the country was still at war,” Lavali said.
In addition, Patrick Jaiah Kamara, a reporter for the newspaper Concord Times, complained that he and two fellow journalists were beaten and had their cameras destroyed by members of the governing party. Police officers and soldiers stood by and did not stop the attack, he said.
“My face still swollen from the beating I received and my camera was completely destroyed,” Kamara said.
The Electoral Commission had postponed the runoff after a High Court judge found irregularities in the first round of voting. And even after the runoff was held Saturday, the outcome was delayed because of disagreements over how to count the votes.
Sierra Leone has abundant natural wealth, including diamonds, bauxite and iron ore, but the country is one of the world’s poorest, with high rates of maternal and infant mortality. Many adults make a living from activities like selling clothes along the road, pushing loads in wheelbarrows for hire and driving motorbike taxis.
Education and improved health care are needed to get the nation back on its feet. And corruption is a major challenge, according to Ibrahim Abdullah, a former professor of history and African studies at Fourah Bay College at the University of Sierra Leone.