confidentially speaking
The Africa Confidential Blog
Sierra Leone's Maada Bio faces election test
Blue Lines
About 3.4 million Sierra Leoneans are expected to vote in a general election on 24 June in which incumbent President Julius Maada Bio is seeking a second and final term. Although 13 candidates will be on the ballot paper, the poll is widely expected to be a re-run of the 2018 election, where Bio narrowly defeated Samura Kamara of the All People's Congress (APC) party.
Bio made a positive start back in 2018, setting up a judicial inquiry into the unexplained wealth of his predecessor Ernest Bai Koroma. But his government failed to reboot the ailing economy. Nearly 60% of Sierra Leone's 7 million people are poor, with unemployment one of the highest in West Africa. Last August, economic hardship prompted anti-government protests which turned violent. That, combined with soaring prices and currency devaluation, has given Kamara his main lines of attack.
More concerning, in the country's fifth general election since the official end of the civil war in 2002, have been disputes between the APC and Bio's Sierra Leone People's Party over the administration of the polls. Kamara has called for the electoral commission to resign.
But Bio remains the clear favourite. He will hope that having the endorsement of the third-placed candidate in 2018, the technocratic Kandeh Yumkella, will be decisive, though Bio is unlikely to win the 55% needed in the first round to avoid a runoff.
