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.
‘CROSSING THE LINE’: China’s embassy in Seoul criticized US Forces Korea Commander General Xavier Brunson, asking if his ‘hostile’ remarks were authorized by Washington South Korea and the US are in talks over recent public remarks by the commander of US Forces Korea, Seoul’s presidential office said yesterday, after the comments drew sharp criticism from China. In a recent podcast interview, US Forces Korea Commander General Xavier Brunson described South Korea as “the dagger in the heart of Asia” from China’s east coast, prompting the Chinese embassy in Seoul to say that he had “truly crossed the line.” The interview came amid growing speculation that Washington might seek to expand the role of US Forces Korea in countering the growing regional influence of China, a key
Through the noise of rushing papers and whirring belts at a print factory in Kyoto, two creators watch their photo essay come to life in broadsheet form — part of an effort to win new audiences in the age of artificial intelligence (AI). Despite the decline of the publishing industry, self-publication and handmade “zine” magazines are growing in popularity in Japan, reflecting the nation’s enduring love of paper in the digital era. While speaking to Agence France-Presse at the plant, his hands black with ink, one of the creators, Kazuma Obara, said: “I think [paper] is a medium that engages all five
Australian researchers have trained lab-grown brain cells on a silicon computer chip to play the 1990s shooter game Doom and said they are just scratching the surface of what the neurons could be capable of doing. It is the science-fiction work of biotech boffins at Cortical Labs, who researched and developed the technology that harnesses the workings of the brain’s networking system. Each so-called “biological computer” contains about 200,000 living human brain cells, grown from stem cells that were harvested from blood donations. Having mastered the simple computer game Pong, where a paddle is moved up and down to send a ball
France experienced its hottest spring on record, the French weather service said on Tuesday, after an exceptional early heat wave that also broke highs for the season in England and Wales. Meteo-France said the average nationwide temperature over March to May was 13.8°C — about 1.7°C above the norm, and surpassing records set in 2011 and 2020. “The warmest spring since records began in 1900,” it said in a bulletin. All three months were warmer than average, but the onset of an “unprecedented heatwave” late last month pushed the mercury to highs typically seen at the height of the summer. “Our country had never
RSS