Sierra Leone’s President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah and his SLPP party is poised to win his country’s historic post-war elections, according to preliminary results emerging on Thursday.
”Kabbah is leading” in the presidential elections, Commissioner Walter Nicol said, adding that the president’s party had a bigger edge in the parliamentary elections.
”In the south and south east, there is no doubt that the SLPP (Sierra Leone People’s Party) is leading substantively,” the polls chief said.
Nicol, however, warned that it was too early to get any clear picture from Tuesday’s elections — the first polls since the end of a brutal 10-year civil war. He said nationwide results would be ready three days after the polls.
”The turnout was extremely good,” he said. ”Everything went off smoothly and there was hardly any hiccup,” agreeing with descriptions of the polls as ”historic”.
”They were conducted five months after the disarmament (by rebels and a state-backed civil militia). For post-conflict elections to go on so smoothly is not a joke,” he said.
The private Democracy FM radio reported that 10% of the votes had been counted by the early hours of Thursday, giving Kabbah 65% of the vote. His nearest rival, Earnest Bai-Koroma, had 24%.
Bai-Koroma represents the All Peoples Congress (APC), the one time sole ruling party in the west African country.
In third place, according to the partial results cited by the radio, was Johnny-Paul Koroma of the Peace and Liberation Party with four percent, while the ex-rebel’s RUFP party candidate was faring miserably with 2.4%.
”I would just say they are not doing very well,” Nicol said when asked to comment on the performance of the RUFP, a party of ex-rebels which began disarming after a peace pact last year. They are contesting elections for the first time.
President Kabbah is widely seen as the man who brought peace back to Sierra Leone with the help of a United Nations peacekeeping force and British military trainers.
The winning presidential candidate has to garner at least 55% of the vote to be elected in the first round, failing which there will be a run-off.
Meanwhile, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan congratulated Sierra Leonians for turning out in large numbers.
”Their peaceful and enthusiastic participation in the elections is an eloquent testimony to Sierra Leonians’ determination to turn a page on their tragic past,” he said in a statement.
Annan said the next challenge facing Sierra Leone and the international community was the country’s pressing needs for reconstruction and national reconciliation.
Sierra Leone’s civil war, which formally ended in January, left an estimated 200 000 people dead and thousands more mutilated or psychologically scarred.
Britain’s Foreign Secretary Jack Straw hailed the vote in the former British colony as ”a remarkable achievement”.
”These elections mark a new chapter of politics and peace in Sierra Leone’s history. This is a remarkable achievement and clearly illustrates the real progress Sierra Leone is making towards lasting peace,” Straw said.
He added that Britain would ”continue to work with the people of Sierra Leone to help them rebuild their country”.
Britain sent several hundred troops to its former west African colony in May 2000 when rebels from the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) took some 500 United Nations peacekeepers hostage.
The United State said it was ”pleased” with the conduct of the vote.
”We are pleased that the campaign and the balloting was relatively free of violence,” said Lynn Cassel, a State Department representative.
Tuesday’s polls were by far the most peaceful in Sierra Leone, which has suffered repeated electoral violence, coups and a bloody civil war.
Oluyemi Adeniji, Special Representative of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, said he hoped all parties would accept the final result with grace and ”accept it as the will of the people”. – Sapa-AFP