{{Sierra Leone’s main opposition has said it will boycott parliament and local councils unless its concerns about the recent elections are addressed.}}<\/p>\n
The Sierra Leone People’s Party, which won 40% of parliamentary seats, alleges this month’s polls were fraudulent.<\/p>\n
Their presidential candidate, ex-military ruler Julius Maada Bio, also lost to incumbent Ernest Bai Koroma.<\/p>\n
International observers said the poll, the third since the civil war, was conducted peacefully and transparently.
\nArrests<\/p>\n
The SLPP alleges that some ballot boxes are stuffed with pre-marked ballots.<\/p>\n
But the electoral commission, which released the presidential election results on Friday and parliamentary and local council results on Monday, has said it found no evidence of “over voting”.<\/p>\n
An MP who does not show up in the house for about three months forfeits their seat.<\/p>\n
In the run-up to the elections there were clashes between rival party supporters in the capital, Freetown.<\/p>\n
After the presidential results were announced on Friday, about seven SLPP supporters were arrested in the eastern town of Kenema because police feared riots.<\/p>\n
The SLPP also demanded that some of its supporters be released from police custody, and all charges against them dropped.<\/p>\n
The SLPP controls nine out of the West African nation’s 19 local councils.<\/p>\n
President Koroma, of the ruling All People’s Congress, won a second and final term in office with almost 59% of votes cast.<\/p>\n
The vote was the first post-war election Sierra Leone had organised itself – the other two held since the war ended in 2002 were run by the United Nations.<\/p>\n
Since the end of the 11-year war, in which an estimated 50,000 people were killed, Sierra Leone has made progress towards reconciliation.<\/p>\n
However, it remains one of the poorest countries in Africa with a large number of the population of about six million living on less than $1.25 (80p) a day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{{Sierra Leone’s main opposition has said it will boycott parliament and local councils unless its concerns about the recent elections are addressed.}} The Sierra Leone People’s Party, which won 40% of parliamentary seats, alleges this month’s polls were fraudulent. Their presidential candidate, ex-military ruler Julius Maada Bio, also lost to incumbent Ernest Bai Koroma. International […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-4363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4363"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4363\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4363"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=4363"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=4363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}