Sierra Leonean voters elect their president on Saturday, in a country in the midst of an economic slump where outgoing Julius Maada Bio is seeking a second term against his main competitor Samura Kamara.
The ballot, which is due to end at 5:00 p.m. (local and GMT), started late in several centers such as Wilberforce Barracks, a barracks in Freetown where President Bio voted shortly before 12:00 p.m., AFP journalists noted. . About 3.4 million people are called upon to choose between 13 candidates.
“Go out to vote. It’s your right. Today is a day of choice, choice of your representative in Parliament, your municipal councilor and also your president. Go out and vote without problem,” said Mr. Bio after putting his ballot in the ballot box.
Sierra Leoneans must also elect their parliament and local councils. A third of the candidates will have to be women, under a new law.
-Revenge-
Mr. Bio’s main competitor for the presidential election, Mr. Samura Kamara, notably denounced “congested voting centers”, in a statement to the press, after his vote in the capital on Saturday.
This election is decisive for “the future of Sierra Leone”, he added without answering the question of whether or not he would accept the results.
Under a brief fine rain, queues of several hundred voters formed in front of polling stations in the capital.
This presidential election is the revenge of 2018 between Mr. Bio, a 59-year-old retired soldier, and Mr. Kamura, a 72-year-old technocrat and leader of the All People’s Congress (APC). Mr. Bio, candidate of the Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP), then won in the second round with 51.8% of the vote.
Since then, Mr. Bio has had to govern one of the poorest countries on the planet, hard hit by Covid-19 and then the war in Ukraine.
The former British colony was already struggling to recover from a bloody civil war (1991-2002) and the Ebola epidemic (2014-2016).
Inflation and exasperation with the government sparked riots in August 2022 that left 27 civilians and six policemen dead.
Mr. Bio has championed education and women’s rights. He told AFP to favor agriculture and reduce his country’s dependence on food imports.
Mr. Kamara, Minister of Finance and then of Foreign Affairs before the advent of Mr. Bio in 2018, told AFP that he wanted to restore confidence in national economic institutions and attract foreign investors.
A candidate must receive 55% of the valid votes to be elected in the first round.
The high cost of living is the common concern of a very large majority of Sierra Leoneans. Prices of staples like rice have skyrocketed. Inflation in March was 41.5% year on year.
“People are struggling even to afford three meals a day,” said a 19-year-old from the Cockle Bay slum in Freetown, on condition of anonymity.
“In addition, the government is violating our fundamental rights, starting with freedom of expression,” he said.
After decades of unrest, coups and authoritarian rule, Sierra Leone has been electing its president since the late 1990s.
Mr. Bio himself was a member of a group of officers who took power by force in 1992, and leader in 1996 of a new putsch before organizing free elections, then leaving for the States -United.
Human rights defenders denounce the persistence of serious abuses, including by the government or in the name of the government. The opening in February of a corruption trial against Samura Kamara, just after his nomination as a candidate, raised questions.
Analysts point out, however, that voters will calculate that the money and the work will go to the regions whose representatives will be associated with the winner of the presidential election.
The risk of violence is one of the unknowns, although the campaign was quieter than previous times in Freetown.
Macksood Gibril Sesay, a former member of the electoral commission, said he was worried that after the riots in August 2022 there was “no healing process”. “Everyone knows that elections are a time when all it takes is a spark for there to be chaos everywhere.”
06/24/2023 20:01:40 – Freetown (AFP) – © 2023 AFP