Sierra Leone on Monday anxiously awaited preliminary results from watershed elections that international observers declared free and fair, despite allegations of vote-rigging from some parties.
Preliminary results from Saturday’s presidential and legislative ballots were expected later in the day, but officials said it would take at least a week for credible estimates to emerge on a national basis.
The elections were only the second since Sierra Leone emerged in 2001 from one of the most brutal civil wars in modern history, and the first organised by the country on its own since 17 500 United Nations peacekeepers pulled out in 2005.
The European Union’s chief observer, Marie-Annie Isler-Beguin, described the vote as “generally well administered, peaceful and competitive”, but stopped short of fully endorsing the poll.
“It is too early to do this,” Isler-Beguin said. “We have to wait to see the reaction of the political parties [to the results].”
Voters had turned out in force to pick a new leader to succeed President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah and a fresh set of lawmakers to fill the 112-seat Parliament.
Vice-President Solomon Berewa of the ruling Sierra Leone’s People’s Party (SLPP) is facing a stiff challenge for the presidency from the opposition All People’s Congress (APC)’s Ernest Koroma.
But neither is tipped to win the 55% absolute majority required to win on the first round.
EU parliamentarians observing the elections voiced concern at suggestions that Berewa had handed out cash to voters ahead of the poll and that his party had more access to the state-controlled media during campaigning.
SLPP spokesperson Victor Reider dismissed the vote-buying allegations as “baseless and unfounded”.
Observers from the West African regional bloc Ecowas, the African Union and the Commonwealth all gave the polling an initial nod of approval, as did Sierra Leone’s National Elections Watch, a coalition of more than 100 local civic and NGOs, which fielded 5 400 monitors.
The two main parties, however, traded accusations of rigging and intimidation.
The SLPP said some of its members had been physically attacked, while APC secretary general Victor Foh said “we have evidence of rigging”.
About 2,6-million voters out of the country’s 5,5-million inhabitants were eligible to vote six years after the end of Sierra Leone’s extremely bloody civil conflict that had been fuelled by so-called blood diamonds.
The war claimed about 120 000 lives and hundreds of thousands more suffered horrific abuse at the hands of rebels, who specialised in hacking off people’s limbs with machetes.
Seven parties fielded candidates in this former British colony, which is ranked the second poorest country in the world despite its huge mineral wealth.
Legislators are elected by a simple majority, and 566 candidates stood for the 112 seats in the single-chamber Parliament, where 12 powerful traditional chiefs also sit.
The new government faces an uphill battle against poverty and corruption. Most of the infrastructure, including electricity generation and roads, were ravaged during the war. — AFP