Results from the Sierra Leone’s presidential run-off are expected later on Tuesday.
Opposition Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) is already claiming victory while the ruling All People’s Congress (APC) is disputing that.
The country’s National Electoral Commission (NEC) resumed vote tallying following the agreement that was reached between them and the political parties contesting the presidential race.
The vote tallying process had been stopped because of failure by the APC and SLPP to agree on which system to use to collate the results from polling stations.
The APC was comfortable with the results being entered into Microsoft Excel sheets for collation while the SLPP insisted that the existing manual tallying system was foolproof and should be maintained.
Several observer groups including the African Union, Commonwealth and ECOWAS mediation saw the parties agree to employ a blend of existing system and the Excel spreadsheets.
The NEC issued a statement outlining that there was an agreement on how the results would be entered into the reconciliation and results forms as mandated by the law. The results would then be entered into an Excel spreadsheet that will be used by NEC in the compilation of final results.
NEC resumes the tally process after signing of 2018 Bintumani Agreement. pic.twitter.com/TnZLV72HpX
— The Electoral Commission for Sierra Leone (@ECsalone) April 2, 2018
The SLPP then held a press conference upon the resumption of tallying by the NEC telling journalists that its candidate, Julius Maada Bio was leading with 54% against APC’s Samura Kamara according to their own tallying centre.
The NEC has again and again asked Sierra Leoneans to pay less attention to any provisional results being declared by any parties other than the electoral commission itself.
