The run-off vote will be held on March 27, 2018.
Julius Maada Bio of the Sierra Leone People’s Party obtained the most votes in a recent election. (AFP pic)
FREETOWN: Sierra Leone will hold a run-off vote for president on March 27, the election commission said on Tuesday, after the country’s main opposition party finished slightly ahead of the ruling party in the first round of voting.
Opposition leader Julius Maada Bio of the Sierra Leone People’s Party, took 43.3% of votes in the March 7 election, while Samura Kamara of the incumbent All Peoples Congress took 42.7%, the commission said.
Turnout appeared to be around 85% of Sierra Leone’s 3.1 million voters.
The threshold to win in the first round was 55%, and the final results released Tuesday were slightly delayed by recounts in some areas.
The two parties dominate Sierra Leone’s politics and have ruled alternately since independence from the UK in 1961.
President Ernest Bai Koroma, who cannot run again after consecutive five-year terms, selected Kamara as his successor.
Third-party candidate Kandeh Yumkella finished with just 6.9% of votes despite his National Grand Coalition party’s hopes of an electoral breakthrough.
Meanwhile, police said they made several arrests in the capital Freetown and in the northern Kono District after unrest broke out between rival political groups.
The export-dependent economy of the mineral-rich but impoverished West African country is in a dire state following the 2014-16 Ebola crisis. A commodity price slump has driven away foreign investors.
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Sumber Sierra Leone opposition ahead as presidential run-off called
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