Thousands of Sierra Leoneans began voting on Tuesday in presidential and parliamentary polls aimed at securing peace after a brutal 10-year civil war thought to have claimed up to 200 000 lives.
Queues formed well before the estimated 5 000 polling booths opened at 7am (0700 GMT). Some 2,3-million registered voters have a choice among nine presidential candidates.
Incumbent President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah, who is seeking a second term on the strength of his record as the man who restored peace and brought in British and UN troops to end the war, was among the first to vote.
Kabbah, sporting a black and white shirt and a dazzling smile, appeared relaxed when he voted at what is usually a well known nightclub called ‘Rumours’, located in Freetown’s Hill Station district.
Most observers reckoned that Kabbah’s main rival is Ernest Bai Koroma of the All Peoples Congress (APC), the onetime sole ruling party in the west African country.
Huge crowds turned out in parts of Monrovia such as the densely populated Murray Road area, where hundreds of civil war amputees were registered to vote.
Among them was Lamin Jusu Jarka, the chairman of an amputees’ camp, who had both hands chopped off by Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels when they invaded Freetown in January 1999.
He dipped his big toe in indelible ink to stamp the ballot paper.
”It (the vote) is going to be a new beginning of life,” Jarka said.
”People are looking forward to installing a new democratic government which will take care of the people.
”We expect the new government to care of the amputees. We should be given a percentage of the earnings from the mineral wealth, including diamonds. Right now we have no monetary help from the state,” he said.
There was confusion in several polling stations with voters being redirected to other districts. Some voters’ cards were incomplete but their holders were allowed to cast their ballot if their names and serial numbers
appeared on the official list.
The democratic process has been largely facilitated by the 17 500-strong UN Mission in Sierra Leone, the world’s biggest peacekeeping operation, which was Tuesday acting as a back-up to the army and police in case things turned awry.
The vote is the first since the rebel insurgency was officially declared over in January. Up to 200 000 people are believed to have died, thousands had their limbs amputated or were kidnapped, raped or forcibly enrolled to fight.
Contesting elections for the first time, the RUF has transformed itself into the RUF Party (RUFP). It financed its insurgency largely by mining in areas under its control and selling so-called ”blood diamonds” for arms.
The RUF’s participation has raised mixed feelings.
Kemoh Sheriff (28) whose leg was amputated by the rebels, said: ”There should be peace and love after the elections. I cannot forgive the RUF but they are our brothers. If you did not allow them to contest, maybe they would have had another agenda and started fighting again.”
But Ya-Bom Kamara was not so forgiving.
”I will never forgive them. When they cut off my hands they said ‘Go to (President) Kabbah and ask him to give back your hands.’ I am voting for Kabbah. Who will vote for the RUF?” In Makeni, the former rebel stronghold 140 kilometres east of Freetown, RUPF representative Wosso Conteh said that ”it is all going smoothly.”
”The only problem, it is slow,” Conteh said. Security was light, with one or two policemen in each polling station.
”I happy for vote,” said Fatoumata Kamara, a Makeni woman of around 60. ”I so glad for vote, I want war done-done.”
Mambu Jabati, a 19-year-old Freetown student, said had not minded leaving home at 5:30 and still finding himself in line two hours after the voting stations opened.
”I so proud of my country. I am very very glad to see a lot of people casting their vote and their democratic right.” ? Sapa-AFP