By Ebi Kesiena
As counting continues on Monday, provisional results from Sierra Leone’s Presidential election showed that President Julius Maada Bio is leading with 60% of votes counted at the time of filling this report.
In a statement, the Electoral Commission of Sierra Leone (ECSL) stated that partial presidential election results reveal President Bio, the incumbent president and leader of the Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP), is leading with over a million votes, adding that final verified results will be announced within the next 48 hours.
He is followed by Samura Kamara, 72, the leader of the All People Congress (APC), who received 783,751 votes.
“The results detailed below are partial and do not represent the complete outcome of the Presidential election,” the statement said.
Julius Maada Wonie Bio is the current president of Sierra Leone and has been in office since 4 April, 2018.
Bio is one of 13 candidates running for re-election. The electoral authority has not yet released the turnout rate for the 3.4 million people who were called upon to choose their next president.
The election authority released partial results just hours after the two main parties announced their victories.
Earlier, the All People Congress (APC) had declared victory on Sunday evening, prompting supporters to gather outside the party’s headquarters in the capital, Freetown.
The local police said in a late Sunday statement that they used tear gas to disperse opposition members who were causing a disturbance by announcing to the public that they had won the general elections.
However, the police maintained that the situation had become “unbearable,” adding that they were forced to use tear gas to disperse the crowd that was causing problems on the road.
While members of the APC, for their part, condemned the shooting, as they displayed an image of a wounded woman in the party headquarters.
