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Sierra Leone: Citizens await election result – incumbent confident of victory
A decade after the war’s end, Sierra Leone remains one of the poorest countries in the world despite its diamonds and other riches. Several recent offshore oil discoveries, though, are raising hopes for economic development.
While Sierra Leone already had held two mostly peaceful votes since the war’s end, experts said Saturday’s vote would be a crucial test of whether those gains were irreversible.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon praised Sierra Leonean voters for the “peaceful and largely orderly elections.
“The high voter turnout and the remarkable calm displayed by the country’s citizens as they cast their votes are a clear manifestation of their desire for peace, democracy and development,” said a statement released by his spokesperson.
The incumbent president, Koroma, has pointed to his accomplishments during his first term, pleading with voters in his campaign signs: “I Will Do More.”
He faced eight opponents including leading opposition figure Julius Maada Bio, a retired brigadier-general who calls himself the “father of democracy” after his brief three-month tenure at the country’s helm in 1996.
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.
