The Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP), led by re-elected President Julius Maada Bio, won a majority in the legislative elections by winning 81 seats, according to results announced on Saturday July 1 by the electoral commission. The formation is ahead of the opposition All People’s Congress Party (APC), which won 54 seats. Fourteen traditional chiefs complete the new Parliament.
But the APC, led by Samura Kamara, candidate who came second in the June presidential election, said in a statement “its non-participation at any level of governance, including the legislature and local councils, because the results have already been rigged to give the SLPP an unfair majority at all levels”. “The APC unequivocally rejects the election results (…) given the flagrant irregularities and violations of the electoral process,” he continues, presenting the current regime as a “dictatorship”.
Outgoing President Julius Maada Bio was re-elected on Tuesday, June 27, for a second term in the first round with 56.17% of the vote (against 41.16% for Mr. Kamara), according to results from the electoral commission which were already contested by the opposition and local organizations.
One of the opposition figures, the outgoing mayor of Freetown, the country’s capital, Yvonne Aki-Sawyerr, kept her term in office by a short head.
“Unwarranted Tension”
Mr. Kamara demands the resignation of the heads of the electoral commission and calls for new elections, “fair and transparent”, within six months, supervised by “credible people”. His party, the APC, believes that the results announced do not correspond to the total number of votes cast in each polling station and claims that the results were announced even before being certified locally by the agents of the electoral commission and the political formations.
A government body responsible for security on the territory, for its part, considered that the alternative results pronounced by civil society organizations, and the “lack of transparency” denounced by Western countries could cause “unjustified tension” while the election took place in relative calm.
