APC IN SHOCK DEFEAT AS OPPOSITION SWORN IN
APC IN SHOCK DEFEAT AS OPPOSITION SWORN
IN
Opposition
candidate and former military junta leader Julius Bio was sworn in as Sierra
Leone’s new president late on Wednesday, March 4, 2018, just hours after the
elections commission announced his victory in a tight run-off poll.
He now
faces the difficult task of rebuilding the impoverished West African nation’s
economy that was dragged down by the world’s deadliest Ebola epidemic and a
global slump in commodity prices.
Representing
the Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP), Bio won 51.81 per cent of votes cast in
the March 31 poll, according to results announced by the National Electoral
Commission (NEC) on Wednesday.
He
defeated former foreign affairs minister and ruling All People’s Congress (APC)
candidate Samura Kamara, who had held a slight lead based on partial results
earlier in the day but in the end garnered 48.19 per cent.
Dressed
in traditional white robes, Maada Bio was sworn in just before midnight at a
hotel in the capital Freetown, raising in the air the Bible upon which he swore
the oath of office to the cheers of supporters.
“This is
the dawn of a new era. The people of this great nation have voted to take a new
direction,” he
said in a speech following the short ceremony in which he made an appeal for national unity.
said in a speech following the short ceremony in which he made an appeal for national unity.
“We have
only one country, Sierra Leone, and we are all one people.”
Bio, who
briefly ruled Sierra Leone as head of a military junta in 1996, replaces
outgoing President Ernest Koroma, who could not seek re-election due to term
limits.
The
largely peaceful election process has come as a relief for the country of seven
million people, who in the 1990s endured a brutal civil war fueled by the
diamond trade and notorious for its drug-addled child soldiers and punitive
amputations.
SLPP
supporters packed into the NEC headquarters on Wednesday, and following the
announcement of the election results party officials urged the Maada Bio’s
backers to remain calm.
“Celebrate
responsibly. Do not disturb your neighbour. Victory for all men, not victory
for some.
“Everyone
in, no one out,” the party’s campaign manager Ali Kabba said.
Opposition
supporters, confident of victory, sang and danced in the streets of Freetown on
Wednesday evening hours before Bio was officially declared the winner.
“I feel
happy about the results. I am here because my president Julius Maada Bio has
won the election in this country,” said Adolfus Kargbo, among a group of SLPP
supporters chanting Maada Bio’s name.