In Sierra Leone we are voting to elect a new president and to renew the parliament. The two main presidential candidates are Julius Maada Bio, outgoing president, and Samura Kamara: the two had already competed for the position in the last elections, in 2018, then won by Bio, who the polls show as favorite again this time.
Bio, 59, is a former soldier who participated in two coups during the civil war that was fought in Sierra Leone in the 1990s: in 1996 he governed the country at the head of a military junta. A few months later he left power to his democratically elected successor and went to the United States to study for a period. In recent years Bio has attracted several international attention thanks to the decision to invest heavily in education. Kamara, on the other hand, is an economist and former Minister of Finance and Foreign Affairs who during the election campaign insisted on some of the most discussed issues in the country, such as youth unemployment. In 2021 Kamara was accused of embezzlement in a case related to the renovation of the Sierra Leone consulate in New York: the sentence will probably come in July.
To win in the first round, presidential candidates must obtain at least 55 percent of the votes: otherwise – the most probable eventuality, according to the polls – there will be a runoff, which will be held two weeks later.