NEC announces final results of 11 August elections
Final results of the Presidential and Parliamentary elections were announced on Thursday, 23 August, by the Chairperson of the National Electoral Commission (NEC) Dr. Christiana Thorpe. In the Presidential election, the opposition All Peoples Congress (APC) party flag bearer Ernest Koroma led the polls with 44%; Vice President Solomon Berewa of the ruling Sierra Leone Peoples Party (SLPP) scored 38% and Charles Margai of the Peoples Movement for Democratic Change (PMDC) party was third with 13.8%. Out of a total of 112 parliamentary seats, the APC secured 59 seats, the SLPP 43 and the PMDC 10. Voter turn out was 75.8% out of an estimated voters of 2,600,000. Since none of the presidential candidates secured 55% of the votes as demanded by the constitution, the presidential race will be decided in a run-off between the ruling SLPP and the APC candidates. The final results for the presidential and parliamentary elections will be announced officially to the public on Saturday, 25 August, by the NEC Chairperson and the date for the run-off will be announced as well. Final presidential and parliamentary elections results were published in Awoko, Concord Times, Awareness Times and The New Citizen.
United Nations Security Council welcomes peaceful elections in Sierra Leone
The United Nations Security Council has welcomed the successful holding of presidential and parliamentary elections in Sierra Leone. A press release from Security Council members called on political parties and their followers to continue to maintain an atmosphere of calm and public order particularly when the official results are announced by the National Electoral Commission (NEC). Security Council members called for continued respect of the Code of Conduct for Political Parties and the Media Code of Conduct and at the same time endeavour to resolve dispute that may have emerged during the elections through established legal channels, The Exclusive and Awoko report.
Accept election results - PPRC encourages political parties
Various stakeholders in the political process have beseeched leaders of political parties to accept the outcome of the election results in addition to warning them to maintain the spirit of tolerance and to play the political game free of violence, The New Citizen narrates. The story adds that the Chairperson of the Political Parties Registration Commission (PPRC), Justice Sydney Warne, acclaimed political parties for the peaceful manner in which they conducted themselves during the 11 August polls, reminding them that Sierra Leone is bigger than anyone else. Justice Warne also enlightened that since the establishment of the Commission, they had fulfilled their key mandate of registering political parties and settling intra and inter party disputes. Representatives of political parties, the story continued, guaranteed to abide by the Code of Conduct they signed and at the same time accept the results of the August polls. They further assured that they would refrain from making unsavory statements in their media organs.
SLPP on fence-mending mission across the country
In their desperation to retain political power after the opposition All Peoples Congress Party (APC) has delved them a devastating blow in the just concluded presidential and parliamentary elections, the ruling Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) is on fence-mending mission across the country to lure their former allies who have broken ranks with the party. The Independent Observer says President Kabbah will be visiting Bonthe to plead to the people to vote in the SLPP in the run-off. Bonthe used to be the stronghold of SLPP, but the party was solidly trounced by the newly formed Peoples Movement for Democratic Change (PMDC) party in the 11 August elections as they clinched all the three parliamentary seats in the district. It is also understood that Bonthe has a large concentration of Ex-k
Kamajor fighters and most people are of the opinion that they are paying the SLPP in their own coin for the ill-treatment of the former leader Hinga Norman. The Standard Times on the other hand, alleges that Finance Minister John Benjamin, Commissioner General of the National Revenue Authority (NRA), John Karimu and Sierra Leone’s Ambassador to Liberia, Patrick Foya, all of the ruling SLPP, visited the three convicts of the former Civil Defense militia at their cells at the Special Court for Sierra Leone. The paper reported that the meeting was to persuade the former Kamajors to appeal to their members to vote for the SLPP in the presidential run-off, but they were said to be rebuffed.
Source: UNIOSIL.
Comments