Sierra Leone conducted presidential and legislative elections on August 12, 2007. The elections were the second to be held since the country’s bloody civil war ended in 2002. Election observers from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) along with European Union (EU) and other international observers all declared the elections free and fair.
Additionally, Sierra Leon’s National Elections Watch (NEW) also declared the election free and fair. NEW was a coalition of more than 100 local civic and non-governmental organizations that organized 5,400 observers to monitor the vote throughout the country.
The results from the elections are to be announced within 12 days. There were no indications after the polls closed on Sunday when the results would be released, but it is likely they will be announced by the end of this week.
Current Vice President Solomon Berewa ran for President for the Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP). Berewa was expected to face a close race with the All People’s Congress (APC) candidate Ernest Koroma. Neither candidate was expected, based on polls, to achieve the 55 percent of the vote necessary to ensure the absolute majority needed to win. A second round of voting will be held if neither candidate reaches a 55 percent vote count majority.
The legislative elections were decided by a simple majority vote. For the 112 seats in the single-chamber parliament, seven parties fielded 556 candidates.
Forward Progress From Brutal Past
The elections were the first to be organized and conducted by the people of Sierra Leone since the end of the civil war. The first post-war election was organized by the United Nations (UN) and occurred in 2002. The UN had 17,500 troops deployed in Sierra Leone from 1999-2005.
From 1991 until 2002 Sierra Leone experienced a brutal civil war. Approximately 120,000 people were killed in the war and hundreds of thousands of survivors suffer from horrific disfigurations as a result of rebel tactics that often included cutting limbs off victims.
The war was fueled by the large amount of diamonds in the country. Liberia President Charles Taylor backed the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) who was responsible for much of the fighting in exchange for payment in diamonds. Several leaders of the RUF were later arrested and convicted in The Hague, Netherlands for war crimes.
Fighting erupted after EOWAS troops left in 2000. With Liberian President Taylor having been deposed and sent to The Hague and newly elected Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf seeking regional stability, we believe that Sierra Leone will remain a stable country in the near-term.
Future Concerns
While the EU, ECOWAS, and other international observers certified the elections as fair and free, there remains the possibility that the political parties will still dispute the results. Already, the SLPP and APC have accused each other of vote rigging and intimidation. The SLPP claims that some of its members were physically attacked but they have not accused the APC of being responsible for the attacks. APC Secretary General Victor Bockarie Foh said that if the elections were not fair, “this country will recede into anarchy, warfare, and degradation.”
While we remain concerned about the possibility of an outbreak of violence, it is unlikely to occur due to the international election oversight and observers who declared the elections free and fair. Additionally, there is greater regional stability now than at any time in the previous decade.
