Sierra Leone President Wins Vote
By Associated Press

May 19, 2002, 11:58 AM EDT

FREETOWN, Sierra Leone -- President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah, credited with
helping to end Sierra Leone's ruthless 10-year-old war, won re-election
Sunday in a landmark vote in the West African nation.

Kabbah headed immediately to a swearing-in ceremony after the announcement
by the National Electoral Commission.

Kabbah received 70.6 percent of the vote in Tuesday's elections -- well over
the 55 percent he needed to avoid a runoff.

The second-place candidate, Ernest Koroma of the All Peoples Congress that
once governed Sierra Leone, received 22.35 percent.

The vote signaled a sweeping rejection by voters of the rebel Revolutionary
United Front, which waged an increasingly bloody 10-year campaign bent on
winning control of the government and of diamond fields.

The rebel campaign left tens of thousands of Sierra Leone's people dead.
Countless more live today with the scars of the rebels' signature
atrocity -- the lopping-off of hands, feet, lips and ears with machetes.

With their leader, Foday Sankoh, in jail, the former rebels' presidential
candidate pulled only 1.7 percent of the vote, among nine candidates.

The former rebels also failed to win a single one of the 112 parliament
seats up for election.

Kabbah's party, the Sierra Leone Peoples' Party, won 83 seats. Ernest
Koroma's party received 27 seats. The Peace and Liberation Party of a
one-time junta leader -- Johnny Paul Koroma, who switched back and forth
from rebel to government sides during the war -- netted two seats.

The presidential and parliamentary elections were the first since Sierra
Leone officially declared an end to its war against a ruthless 10-year-old
rebel movement.

Announcement of Kabbah's victory sent Kabbah's supporters running out to
dance in the streets -- singing and cheering, waving the palm-frond symbols
of their party.

Taxis wove among them in Sierra Leone's war-battered capital, blaring their
horns.
Copyright © 2002, The Associated Press

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