The current president of Sierra Leone, Maada Bio, is ahead in the polls for the presidential election. The Electoral Commission of Sierra Leone (ECSL) has stated that it has counted around 60% of the total vote and intends to announce a winner within the next two days.
According to ECSL, Bio has received more than a million votes in total and is leading Kamara by over 200,000. The SLPP party of Bio had earlier declared that it was “greatly anticipating a landslide victory” after analysing its own election results.
In order to be considered a winner in a presidential election, a candidate needs to receive at least 55 percent of the vote. If this is not accomplished in the first round of voting, a second round between the two candidates who received the most votes will be held.
The election on June 24 was the fifth since the end of the civil war in Sierra Leone in 2002, and it took place in the midst of high unemployment, inflation, and violent argumentation.
Election day went through without any problems in the presidential, parliamentary, and municipal elections. On the other hand, Chief Electoral Commissioner Mohamed Konneh highlighted a number of locations where he claimed voters had attacked election officials.
President Bio, 59, of the Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP), and former cabinet minister Samura Kamara, 72, who leads the opposition All People’s Congress (APC), are seen as the two main candidates in the election.
