[Live] Sierra Leone opposition SLPP wins first round, March 27 runoff date fixed

Sierra Leone’s elections body, the National Electoral Commission (NEC) has declared a runoff after final official results released on March 13 showed that none of the 16 presidential hopefuls secured the 55% for a first round win.

The March 27 runoff will as by law required, involve only the top two aspirants. In this particular case, the ruling All Peoples Congress’ Samura Kamara and the main opposition’s Julius Maada Bio of the Sierra Leone Peoples Party (SLPP).

Final results as declared by the National Electoral Commission Chairman were as follows:

• Julius Maada Bio (SLPP) – 1,097,482 (43%)
• Samura Kamara (APC) – 1,082,748 (42%)
• Yumkella Kandeh of the National Grand Coalition (NGC) – 174,014 (6.9%)
• Samuel Sam-Sumana of the Coalition for Change (C4C) – 87,720 (3.5%)
• Mansaray Mohammed Kamaraimba of the Alliance Democratic Party (ADP) 1.1% of votes.

All the other 11 got under a percentage of the votes cast.