Opposition
candidate and former military junta leader Julius Maada Bio was sworn in as
Sierra Leone’s new president late on Wednesday, just hours after the elections
commission announced his victory in a tight run-off poll.
He now faces the difficult
task of rebuilding the impoverished West African nation’s economy that was
dragged down by the world’s deadliest Ebola epidemic and a global slump in
commodity prices.
Representing the Sierra
Leone People’s Party (SLPP), Maada Bio won 51.81 percent of votes cast in the
March 31 poll, according to results announced by the National Electoral
Commission (NEC) on Wednesday.
According to The Star, He
defeated former foreign affairs minister and ruling All People’s Congress (APC)
candidate Samura Kamara, who had held a slight lead based on partial results
earlier in the day but in the end, garnered 48.19 percent.
Dressed in traditional
white robes, Julius Maada Bio was sworn in just before midnight at a hotel in
the capital Freetown, raising in the air the Bible upon which he swore the oath
of office to the cheers of supporters.
“This is the dawn of a new
era. The people of this great nation have voted to take a new direction,” he
said in a speech following the short ceremony in which he made an appeal for
national unity.
“We have only one country,
Sierra Leone, and we are all one people.”
Julius Maada Bio, who
briefly ruled Sierra Leone as head of a military junta in 1996, replaces
outgoing President Ernest Bai Koroma, who could not seek re-election due to
term limits.
The largely peaceful
election process has come as a relief for the country of 7 million people, who
in the 1990s endured a brutal civil war fuelled by the diamond trade and
notorious for its drug-addled child soldiers and punitive amputations.
SLPP supporters packed into
the NEC headquarters on Wednesday, and following the announcement of the
election results party officials urged the Maada Bio’s backers to remain calm.
“Celebrate responsibly. Do
not disturb your neighbour. Victory for all men, not victory for some. Everyone
in, no one out,” the party’s campaign manager Ali Kabba said.
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