På lørdag vil befolkningen i Sierra Leone valfarte til stemmeurnerne, når præsident Ernest Bai Koroma og hans rival Julius Maada Bio står ansigt til ansigt i landets tredje valg efter den blodige borgerkrigs slutning i 2002.
KONO, 13. november, 2012 (IRIN): On 17 November Sierra Leone will head to the polls as President Ernest Bai Koroma of the All People’s Congress (APC) and his main rival Julius Maada Bio of the Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP) face off in what will be the poor Western african country’s third election since the end of an 11-year civil war.
The current government has received praise in some quarters for attracting foreign investment, particularly in the mining sector, as well as for improving the country’s infrastructure, and notably introducing free health care to certain vulnerable groups.
But the president also faces criticism for failing to tackle extreme levels of poverty – 66 percent, according to the most recent World Bank statistics, and high unemployment rates across much of the country.
His term in office has been marred by accusations of corruption levelled against members of his government, including Vice-President Sam Sumana.
In the diamond-mining town of Kono in eastern Sierra Leone previous elections have been contested fiercely, partly because of the ethnic mix in the town: all of the country’s ethnic groups are represented in Kono after decades of migration driven by the lure of the area’s diamond deposits.
Income from these diamonds helped fuel Sierra Leone’s civil war, benefiting mainly Revolutionary United Front (RUF) rebels but also soldiers with the national army.
Youth unemployment
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