President Bio Re-Elected President of Sierra Leone

By Amin Kef (Ranger)

During the final announcement of the results for the Presidential election that was hotly contested in Sierra Leone  by incumbent President Julius Maada Bio of the Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) and Dr Samura Kamara of the main opposition All People’s Congress (APC) Party, the Chief Electoral Commissioner, who is also the Returning Officer, Mohamed Kenewui Konneh, on the 27^th June, 2023 declared Retired Brigadier Dr. Julius Maada Bio as the winner having secured One Million, Five Hundred and Sixty-Six thousand, Nine Hundred and Thirty Two (1,566,932) votes representing 56.17% of the total votes cast  as against the opposition APC Presidential Flagbearer, Dr Samura Kamara who pulled a total of  One Million One Hundred and Forty Eight Two Hundred and Sixty Two (1,148,262) representing just 41.16% of the votes.  The valid votes that were cast amounted to: Two Million, Seven Hundred and Eighty Nine Eight Hundred and Eight (2,789,808) and the invalid votes amounted to: 10,883 (Ten Thousand Eight Hundred and Eighty Three).

Mohamed Konneh was, however, quick to state that any citizen who  lawfully voted in the election may challenge the validity of the said election of the President by petition to the Supreme Court of Sierra Leone within seven days after the declaration of Presidential result pursuant to Section 54(1) of the Public Elections Act, 2022 (Act No. 17 of 2022).

The Chief Electoral Commissioner made the announcement at the Bintumani Conference Centre at Aberdeen in Freetown in the presence of International, Local Observers, the Press and Civil Society Organizations.

Worthy of note is that the Public Elections Act makes provision for a Presidential Candidate to secure 55% of votes cast in the first round of the election failing to do which will lead to the conduct of a runoff election in two weeks time.

However, in the case of the June 24, 2023 Presidential Election , President Bio secured more than 55% of the votes which automatically qualified him to be declared re-elected  as the President of the Republic of Sierra Leone which therefore invariably prevented the conduct of a run-off election.

Prior to the final announcement of the Presidential result, a dangerous trend was rearing its ugly head in the sense that some individuals , mainly from the opposition APC Party, were hasty in peddling the false rumour that their Presidential Candidate, Dr Samura Kamara, has already won the election.

Reacting to the announcement, the President re-elect, Julius Maada Bio, congratulated the people of Sierra Leone for their resilience and for confiding their trust in him by re-electing him as President. He called on the opposition APC Party and all other forces to join him and his Government to move the country forward stressing that the time for politics must be regarded as the past further enjoining all to come onboard in order to roll out sound socio-economic policies that will take the country to another level for the betterment of the vast majority.

As the election result continues to filter down in various communities in the country, supporters of the SLPP started jubilating as electoral victory was widely celebrated.

The winner, President Bio, has already being sworn in as President re-elect.

The June 24 vote was the fifth since the end of Sierra Leone’s civil war in 2002 and was held amid high unemployment and inflation, as well as growing violent rhetoric.

Voting during the presidential, parliamentary and municipal elections was mostly peaceful.