Sierra Leone polls: Opposition SLPP closes gap on ruling APC [50% official results]

Sierra Leone’s elections body, the National Electoral Commission (NEC) on Saturday released a quarter of official results with respect to the presidential polls of March 7, 2018.

With 50% of official results declared, here are the top four:

• Ruling APC candidate, Samura Kamara leads with 566,113 votes (43.2%.)
• Main opposition SLPP’s Julius Maada Bio with 564,687 (43.1%).
• Kandeh Yumkella (NGC) is third with 87,722 (6.7%)
• Samuel Sam-Sumana (C4C) is fourth with 44,685 (3.4%.)

Here are the results so far: NECsalone Provisional Results 50% of the national votes processed (10 March 2018 at 6pm)
Samura (APC) - 566,113
Bio (SLPP) - 564,687
Yumkella (NGC) - 87,722
Sam-Sumana (C4C) - 44,685#SierraLeone #SierraLeoneElections #SierraLeoneDecides

— Vickie Remoe (VickieRemoe) March 10, 2018

Earlier at 25% of results declared the figures looked like this:

APC = 291,933 votes (44.64%.)
SLPP = 274,352 (41.94%).
NCG = 43,117 (6.59%)
C4C = 21,713 (3.32%)

The remaining 3.51% of votes is shared by a dozen other aspirants who were on the ballot sheet aiming to replace outgoing Ernest Bai Koroma. An electoral observer coalition had soon after the vote projected the likelihood of a run-off from their use of the Parallel Voter Tabulation (PVT) collation technology.

A run-off presidential election between the first and second placed candidates is held two weeks after the certification of the results, unless a candidate wins 55% in the first round.

The parliamentary and council elections are decided in a single round, first past the post system. A total of 132 MPs are elected from a choice of 752 candidates fielded by 17 parties (as well as 40 independents).

Additionally, there are 2,741 candidates for a total of 511 elected local positions as councillors, council chairpersons and mayors.