Opposition Calls Vote Rigged, Wants an Election Redo

Sierra Leone's main opposition party on Saturday demanded a rerun of last weekend's presidential election after President Julius Maada Bio was declared the winner and swiftly sworn in for a second term in the West African nation. The opposition All People's Congress party accused the nation's electoral commission of conspiring with Bio's party to rig the results, the AP reports. In a statement, the party called for the resignation of electoral commission Chairman Mohamed Konneh and his team, among others. "What culminated in the rogue announcement of fraudulent election results on June 25 was not just a naked theft of the votes of the suffering masses who needed change, it represents the biggest threat to our democracy, unity and survival as a nation," it said.

According to official results, Bio received 56.17% of the vote, enough to beat his main challenger Kamara while avoiding a runoff. Electoral officials said Kamara had received 41.16% of ballots cast. Bio, who was sworn in for his second term several days after the vote, tweeted for Sierra Leoneans to remain peaceful. "This is a collective victory for every citizen and we must come together now that elections are over for the pursuit of a common goal, which is the development of our dear country," Bio tweeted. There have been concerns that election protesters could take to the streets, per the AP. The West African nation has seen demonstrators protest the state of the economy in recent months.

Pressure is mounting on the electoral commission to open up its conduct of the voting tabulation process. While regional observers like the African Union and ECOWAS declared the elections free and fair, other Western observers have stressed that the counting and tabulation process lacked transparency. The European Union, the UK, the US, and France in particular have pressured the electoral commission to display results from each polling station. EU observers reported inconsistencies between the first and second round of presidential results, per Reuters, including discrepancies "in the number of average valid votes per polling state."

(More Sierra Leone stories.)