According to preliminary results from the presidential election in Sierra Leone, President Julius Maada Bio is in the lead with 60% of the ballots counted, the electoral commission of the West African nation announced on Monday.
“The results detailed below are partial and do not represent the complete outcome of the Presidential election,” the statement said.
After defeating Samura Kamara of the All People’s Congress (APC), a former foreign affairs minister of the West African state, in 2018, Bio is running for re-election. Despite the fact that 11 other people ran for president in the Saturday election, many observers saw it as a rematch between the two.
According to a preliminary results sheet, Bio has so far received over a million votes, whereas Kamara has only received over 800,000. The commission said that the final, certified results would be released within the following 48 hours.
The fifth election following the end of the civil war in Sierra Leone in 2002 was held on June 24 and took place in the midst of rising violence rhetoric, high unemployment, and inflation.
The presidential, legislative, and municipal elections all involved peaceful voting.
However, Chief Electoral Commissioner Mohamed Konneh listed a number of districts on Sunday where he said voters had attacked poll workers.
Additionally, Kamara claimed on Twitter that his office at the party headquarters had been shot at with live ammunition.
On Saturday, a lot of polling places were open late and shut down even later. According to Konneh, voting ended at 11:30 p.m. (23:30 GMT).
