2023-06-26 01:00:33
A day following elections in West African Sierra Leone, presidential candidate Samura Kamara accused the security forces of attempting to assassinate him. On Sunday evening, police officers surrounded the headquarters of the opposition party APC, whose candidate Kamara is the only promising challenger to incumbent President Julius Maada Bio.
“Live ammunition and tear gas were fired at my offices by government forces,” Kamara wrote on Twitter. “This is an assassination attempt.” To do this, he shared images of holes in a wood veneer and people sitting on the floor of a room. The police initially did not comment.
The alleged assassination is said to have happened when Kamara was giving a press conference while his supporters were celebrating in front of the party building. Previously, both the APC and Bio’s ruling SLPP party had claimed victory in Saturday’s election, each citing their own numbers. Official results of the vote, in which parliament and local councils were also elected, are not expected for a few days.
The election in the country of regarding 8.8 million people is a neck-and-neck race between the two largest parties, each with support from different ethnic groups and regions. In 2018, then-government candidate Kamara was narrowly defeated by Bio in a runoff. Polls also put the very popular ex-military bio ahead this year, even though the economic situation in the small coastal state has deteriorated significantly. Almost two thirds of all young people are unemployed. More than 20 demonstrators and six police officers were killed in the violent crackdown on protests by state security forces last August.
The APC suspected election manipulation even before the vote and called for protests. Saturday’s voting was marred by delays in the arrival of polling materials. That’s why people mightn’t vote. The head of the electoral commission acknowledged this on Sunday, but said only a small proportion of polling stations were affected. He called on the parties not to give their supporters “false hopes”.
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