SIERRA LEONE
Ballot counting amid tensions in presidential run-off
Sunday, September 9, 2007
Vote counting is underway in Sierra Leone's presidential run-off election that was dogged by allegations of foul play and raised tension in the west African country still recovering from a brutal civil war.
Sunday, September 9, 2007
By AFP
Outgoing Vice President Solomon Berewa, 69, faced a tight race against 53-year-old opposition leader Ernest Koroma in Saturday's election in Sierra Leone.
After polling passed off largely peacefully, armed police and military set up road blocks in the capital Freetown and the second largest southern city of Bo, stopping and searching cars.
Police chief Brima Acha Kamara told AFP the added security measures were "just precautionary ... otherwise it is calm everywhere."
The security checks come amid allegations traded by the parties of two candidates about the movement of weapons.
The radio stations of the ruling Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP) and the opposition All People's Congress (APC) each accused Saturday the other of amassing machetes to attack their supporters.
Earlier both candidates complained that their party workers were being harassed. But no independent observers have yet confirmed the allegations.
Berewa said he had received a number of reports that police in Freetown had manhandled workers from his party at various polling stations, taking some of them away.
Koroma expressed particular concern about the situation in the eastern ruling party stronghold of Kailahun, where he said his workers could not access some polling stations due to intimidation by their political rivals and had to eventually flee.
Poll monitors said the second round of voting was more orderly than during an inconclusive first ballot held almost one month ago.
"They generally went well but there were some increased tensions in parts of the country, but these were isolated incidents on a national scale," European Union chief observer Marie-Anne Isler-Beguin told AFP.
"We would hope that there is no rise in tension with the announcement of the results," she added.
Political tensions rose two weeks ago after results of the first round showed the ruling party candidate Berewa trailing second with 38.3 percent of the vote against the APC's Koroma at 44.3 percent.
The military was called in to help police patrol the country during the voting after violence marred last week's campaigning and left dozens injured.
Sierra Leone gained notoriety for the barbarity of its diamond-fuelled civil war, in which thousands had their limbs hacked off and 120,000 people were killed in a decade of fighting that ended six years ago.
Ballot counting is taking place at polling stations but transmission of results to the National Electoral Commission's central collating office in the capital takes days and the first substantial partial results are expected only on Monday.
Local radios have, however, begun releasing unofficial results from various polling stations where counting has ended.
Some 2.6 million voters, roughly half of the 5.5 million population, were registered to vote in only the second elections since the end of the war and the first since some 17,500 UN peacekeepers were pulled out in 2005.
Many said they were voting for a new order in the world's second poorest nation, which ironically has huge diamond reserves and vast mineral wealth.
Early signs pointed to a lower turn-out than the first round as fewer numbers of voters were seen across the polling stations.
UN chief Ban Ki-moon on Friday called on all Sierra Leonean parties "to refrain from activities that could endanger peace and stability."
After polling passed off largely peacefully, armed police and military set up road blocks in the capital Freetown and the second largest southern city of Bo, stopping and searching cars.
Police chief Brima Acha Kamara told AFP the added security measures were "just precautionary ... otherwise it is calm everywhere."
The security checks come amid allegations traded by the parties of two candidates about the movement of weapons.
The radio stations of the ruling Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP) and the opposition All People's Congress (APC) each accused Saturday the other of amassing machetes to attack their supporters.
Earlier both candidates complained that their party workers were being harassed. But no independent observers have yet confirmed the allegations.
Berewa said he had received a number of reports that police in Freetown had manhandled workers from his party at various polling stations, taking some of them away.
Koroma expressed particular concern about the situation in the eastern ruling party stronghold of Kailahun, where he said his workers could not access some polling stations due to intimidation by their political rivals and had to eventually flee.
Poll monitors said the second round of voting was more orderly than during an inconclusive first ballot held almost one month ago.
"They generally went well but there were some increased tensions in parts of the country, but these were isolated incidents on a national scale," European Union chief observer Marie-Anne Isler-Beguin told AFP.
"We would hope that there is no rise in tension with the announcement of the results," she added.
Political tensions rose two weeks ago after results of the first round showed the ruling party candidate Berewa trailing second with 38.3 percent of the vote against the APC's Koroma at 44.3 percent.
The military was called in to help police patrol the country during the voting after violence marred last week's campaigning and left dozens injured.
Sierra Leone gained notoriety for the barbarity of its diamond-fuelled civil war, in which thousands had their limbs hacked off and 120,000 people were killed in a decade of fighting that ended six years ago.
Ballot counting is taking place at polling stations but transmission of results to the National Electoral Commission's central collating office in the capital takes days and the first substantial partial results are expected only on Monday.
Local radios have, however, begun releasing unofficial results from various polling stations where counting has ended.
Some 2.6 million voters, roughly half of the 5.5 million population, were registered to vote in only the second elections since the end of the war and the first since some 17,500 UN peacekeepers were pulled out in 2005.
Many said they were voting for a new order in the world's second poorest nation, which ironically has huge diamond reserves and vast mineral wealth.
Early signs pointed to a lower turn-out than the first round as fewer numbers of voters were seen across the polling stations.
UN chief Ban Ki-moon on Friday called on all Sierra Leonean parties "to refrain from activities that could endanger peace and stability."
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