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Sierra Leone to Hold Presidential Runoff After Opposition Wins Initial Vote

Election workers empty a box containing ballot papers at a polling station in Freetown on March 7.

Election workers empty a box containing ballot papers at a polling station in Freetown on March 7.

Photographer: Issouf Sandogo/AFP/Getty Images

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Sierra Leone will hold a runoff vote for president later this month after the main opposition’s candidate won the first round ballot but failed to secure a majority.

The Sierra Leone People’s Party’s Julius Maada Bio won 43.3 percent of the more than two-and-a-half million ballots cast and Samura Kamara, the candidate of President Ernest Bai Koroma’s All Peoples Congress, secured 42.7 percent, Nfa Alie Conteh, the chief commissioner of the National Electoral Commission, said Tuesday in a broadcast on Star television. The candidate of a newcomer, the National Grand Coalition, took third place with 6.9 percent while 13 other candidates accounted for the remaining votes.