The incumbent Sierra Leone’s President, Julius Maada Bio was sworn in for a second term on Tuesday night, just hours after the country’s electoral authority certified his victory at the polls.
Bio’s Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) won nearly 1.6 million votes – 56.1% of the total ballots – to defeat his closest opponent, Samura Kamara of the opposition All People’s Congress (APC) party, who won a 41% share of the vote.
Chief Electoral Commissioner, Mohamed Konneh declared BIO as the winner of the election saying “By the powers vested in me… I hereby certify that Bio Julius Maada… [is] duly elected president.”
Just hours after the results was announced, Bio was sworn in at the State House where he gave a speech thanking citizens for their “trust and dedication.”
Meanwhile, Kamara rejected the results and described it as a “frontal attack on our fledgling democracy.”