Sierra Leone's main opposition All Peoples' Congress (APC) swept aside the ruling party in this month's landmark elections, winning a majority of seats in the new parliament, officials said on Thursday.
The APC won 59 of the 112 seats on offer in the Aug. 11 vote, leaving the ruling Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP) with just 43 seats, down from 83 in the previous assembly.
The People's Movement for Democratic Change, which splintered from the SLPP, took the remaining 10 seats. Also in the parliament are 12 traditional chiefs seen as allied to the SLPP.
The SLPP is credited with helping to end the west African country's brutal 1991-2001 civil war but is blamed for widespread corruption and economic mismanagement.
The presidential and legislative vote was only the second since the west African country emerged from one of the most brutal wars in modern history and the first since 17,500 UN peacekeepers left in 2005.
In the presidential election, provisional results showed that APC leader Ernest Koroma was first with 44.3 percent ahead of Vice President and SLPP candidate Solomon Berewa on 38.3 percent.
Koroma, 53, and Berewa, 69, will go head to head in a run-off vote next month but the vice-president faces an uphill battle after third-placed candidate Charles Margai threw his weight behind Koroma.
As no candidate won the minimum 55 percent of votes cast the election will go to a run-off. National Elections Commission chief Christiana Thorpe said she would announce a date for the second round today.
The new president will replace Ahmad Tejan Kabbah who served two five-year terms, the maximum allowed by the predominantly Muslim nation.
The elections were closely watched to see whether the 5.5 million-strong former British colony has put the violence of its 1991 to 2001 conflict behind it and has embraced lasting democracy.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS