“In exercise of the powers conferred on the Returning Officer by section 37 of the Electoral Laws Act, 2002, I hereby certify that 950,407 valid votes were cast in favour of the APC candidate Ernest Bai Koroma at that election.
“And Ernest Bai Koroma therefore received the highest number of valid votes cast in the election: Ernest Bai Koroma has been duly elected President of the Republic of Sierra Leone at the presidential election of 2007.
“Any citizen of Sierra Leone may challenge the validity of the election of the president by petition to the Supreme Court of Sierra Leone, within seven days after the declaration of the presidential results.”
That announcement made by the Chief National Electoral Commissioner, Dr Christiana Thorpe, yesterday brought down the final curtain on the laborious six-week long presidential election.
Solomon Berewa trailed with 78965145% votes whilst Ernest Koroma had 950,407 votes, which is 55% and the difference between the two presidential candidates is 160,756.
This announcement was greeted with thunderous cheers which resonated at the British Council hall-NEC’s media centre- where Dr Thorpe made the announcement.
Dr Thorpe said 5,679 polling station results were entered into the results database, representing 100% of all polling stations across the country, excluding those that were invalidated and that the average national turnout was 68.09%.
She stated that the total number of valid votes cast was 1,740,058 and that there were 43,793 invalid votes, representing 2.45% of total votes cast.