Sierra Leone presidential race neck and neck

FREETOWN – Early unofficial results on Sunday from Sierra Leone’s presidential runoff election showed the ruling party and opposition candidates were running neck and neck to lead the impoverished west African country.

Opposition leader Ernest Koroma was running slightly ahead of outgoing vice president Solomon Berewa, according to a radio report based on counts from 40 per cent of the polling stations. The first official results were not expected before yesterday at the earliest, but voters across the country were glued to their little hand-held radios following the unofficial figures.Some 2,6 million voters were registered to vote in only the second elections since the end of the country’s brutal civil war six years ago and the first since some 17 500 UN peacekeepers were pulled out in 2005.Sierra Leone gained international notoriety for the barbarity of its diamond-fuelled civil war, in which thousands had their limbs hacked off and 120 000 people were killed in a decade of fighting.Many Sierra Leoneans said they voted for a new order in the world’s second poorest nation, which ironically has huge diamond reserves and vast mineral wealth.Political tensions rose two weeks ago after the results of the first round showed Koroma in first place with 44,3 per cent and Berewa trailing second at 38,3 per cent.Tensions rose further on polling day Saturday when both candidates traded accusations of foul play, but in the end voting passed off peacefully overall.Despite few cases of intimidation, disruption and attempted electoral fraud, some foreign observers said the vote was free, fair and credible.A 15-nation regional bloc, the Economic Commission of West African States (ECOWAS) described the vote as ‘adequately free, peaceful and credible’.Nampa-AFPThe first official results were not expected before yesterday at the earliest, but voters across the country were glued to their little hand-held radios following the unofficial figures.Some 2,6 million voters were registered to vote in only the second elections since the end of the country’s brutal civil war six years ago and the first since some 17 500 UN peacekeepers were pulled out in 2005.Sierra Leone gained international notoriety for the barbarity of its diamond-fuelled civil war, in which thousands had their limbs hacked off and 120 000 people were killed in a decade of fighting.Many Sierra Leoneans said they voted for a new order in the world’s second poorest nation, which ironically has huge diamond reserves and vast mineral wealth.Political tensions rose two weeks ago after the results of the first round showed Koroma in first place with 44,3 per cent and Berewa trailing second at 38,3 per cent.Tensions rose further on polling day Saturday when both candidates traded accusations of foul play, but in the end voting passed off peacefully overall.Despite few cases of intimidation, disruption and attempted electoral fraud, some foreign observers said the vote was free, fair and credible.A 15-nation regional bloc, the Economic Commission of West African States (ECOWAS) described the vote as ‘adequately free, peaceful and credible’.Nampa-AFP