Government Politics of Sierra Leone

Last elections: 17 November 2012 (presidential, legislative and local council)

Next elections: 2017 (presidential and legislative)

Head of State: President Ernest Bai Koroma

Head of Government: the President

Ruling party: All People’s Congress

Following signature of the July 1999 peace agreement UN peacekeepers proceeded with disarming rebel troops and took control over a growing area of the country, and in May 2002 presidential and parliamentary elections were held with Commonwealth observers present. Ahmad Tejan Kabbah and the Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) won a landslide victory, receiving about 70 per cent of the votes in the presidential election, defeating Ernest Bai Koroma.

In the parliamentary elections in August 2007, the Koroma’s All People’s Congress (APC) was the largest party with 59 seats, the SLPP won 43 seats and People’s Movement for Democratic Change (PMDC) ten. The simultaneous first round of the presidential election was won by APC leader Ernest Bai Koroma with 44 per cent of votes; the incumbent SLPP candidate, Solomon Berewa, came second with 38 per cent and Charles Margai of PMDC third with 14 per cent. Since no candidate received the 55 per cent needed to secure the presidency, the leading two candidates, Koroma and Berewa, went into a second round. Koroma received 54.6 per cent of secondround votes and was sworn in as President.
Commonwealth observers reported that both parliamentary and presidential elections had been conducted in a democratic, credible and professional way in accordance with internationally accepted standards.

Presidential, parliamentary and local council elections were held in November 2012 with Commonwealth observers present. President Koroma was re-elected with 58.7 per cent of the votes cast, his main challenger, the SLPP’s candidate, Julius Maada Bio, taking 37.4 per cent. In the parliamentary elections the APC secured 67 of 112 directly elected seats and the SLPP 42. The Commonwealth observers concluded that ‘the organisation and conduct of these elections had met international standards and benchmarks for free and transparent multiparty elections’.