Julius Maada Bio Re-Elected As Sierra Leone President

Sierra Leone President Julius Maada Bio secured victory in the West African country’s presidential election with more than 56 percent of the votes to avoid a run-off against main rival Samura Kamara, the nation’s electoral commission said on Tuesday.

Former soldier Bio, 59, was running for re-election after a first term marred by growing frustration over economic hardship.

Kamara, 72, who suffered a narrow defeat in the 2018 election, received about 41 percent of the votes this time.

The election has been tense, with violent unrest before, during and after the vote.

In 2018, Bio secured his first term in office as a civilian after being declared the winner of a controversial presidential run-off, beating then incumbent Kamara with 51.81 percent of the vote.

Bio had briefly led a military junta more than two decades earlier. He was in a group of young soldiers behind a 1992 coup that would install their leader, Valentine Strasser, as the youngest head of state in the world, at age 25.

He later took power but agreed to step aside in 1996 for an elected civilian leader, and his subsequent apologies for his role in the junta appeared to have rehabilitated his image. Reuters