Sierra Leone's President Julius Maada Bio was re-elected to serve a second term with 56.17 percent of the vote, the head of the electoral commission said Tuesday, prompting the runner-up to "categorically reject" the result.
Bio's main challenger Samura Kamara, who came
second with 41.16 percent of the vote according to final results announced in
Freetown, branded the result "not credible".
"I categorically reject the outcome so
announced by the electoral commission," he said on Twitter.
Vote tallying had already been disputed by
Kamara's All People's Congress (APC), which condemned in a statement Monday an
alleged lack of inclusiveness, transparency and responsibility by the electoral
commission.
The party pointed to the lack of information
about which polling stations or districts the ballots were coming from.
It had said it "will not accept these
fake and cooked up results".
In a later statement, the party alleged
"overvoting" in some areas and said it "continues to
reject" the "fabricated results" and "reaffirms our
victory".
But Bio's supporters welcomed the result.
"I'm happy Bio won, we want him to fix
the economy and create jobs," Susan Myers, 34, said.
Musa Tholluy, 27, said she was happy because
her "president was just re-elected. He's doing great things for this
country. He is fighting corruption".
At a press conference Monday, European Union
observers said a lack of transparency and communication by the electoral
authority had led to mistrust in the electoral process.
The monitors said they witnessed violence at
seven polling stations during voting hours and at three others during the
closing and counting stages.
- 'I need justice' -
They also said they received reports of
violent incidents in six regions, including the use of live ammunition in three
districts.
About 3.4 million people were registered to
vote in Saturday's election.
Bio, 59, a former coup leader in the 1990s,
has championed education and women's rights in his first civilian term.
Kamara, 72, a former foreign and finance
minister, had assailed the electoral commission throughout the campaign period
over alleged irregularities and delays.
Sierra Leoneans also voted in parliamentary
and municipal elections Saturday.
EU observers denounced violence by security
forces at the APC headquarters in Freetown on Sunday night, in what the police
said was an effort to disperse opposition supporters, which left one woman
dead.
Sidie Yahya Tunis, a spokesman for the APC,
told AFP the woman had been on the ground floor of the building at the time.
"She was downstairs in the medical unit
-- she's a nurse -- we have a little health clinic in our office, that's where
she was working," he said.
The woman's son, Ibrahim Conteh, a
25-year-old law student, told AFP he had identified his mother's body at the
morgue.
"I need justice... I just want to
know" who killed my mother, he said in tears.
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