Since he grew to become president of the small West African nation of Sierra Leone in 2018, Julius Maada Bio has devoted 22 p.c of the nation’s price range to schooling, a coverage that has despatched an extra a million youngsters to high school and obtained consideration from worldwide backers.
As Sierra Leoneans voted on Saturday for his or her subsequent president — some lining up at polling stations hours earlier than they have been scheduled to open — Mr. Bio made that schooling initiative a key argument for voters to offer him a second five-year time period.
However many citizens have extra pressing considerations than an schooling coverage that has typically fallen brief: hovering inflation, youth unemployment, day by day energy cuts and relentless warmth waves worsened by local weather change.
Throughout the nation on Saturday, many polling stations remained closed as a result of electoral supplies or officers have been lacking.
“A few of us have been right here since 3 a.m. and nonetheless voting hasn’t began,” Ishmael Beah, a Sierra Leonean author, wrote on Instagram shortly earlier than noon. “We don’t actually perceive what’s going on.”
What’s at stake within the election?
Sierra Leone, dwelling to eight.4 million individuals and one of many world’s poorest international locations, has gained consideration for its new schooling coverage, which if it succeeds, may encourage different international locations in Africa and past.
However financial issues prime most voters’ considerations: The warfare in Ukraine has pushed up gas and meals costs, together with for rice, fish and fuel.
Yr-on-year inflation is above 43 p.c, the very best degree in 20 years. The nationwide foreign money, the Leone, has had the worst depreciation in sub-Saharan Africa.
“When Sierra Leoneans suppose they’ve reached the underside, it will get worse,” stated Cyril Jengo, an economist based mostly in Freetown, the capital.
The main candidates say they plan to deal with the cost-of-living disaster, however Sierra Leone’s complete financial system would wish a revamp, analysts say, because it principally depends on imports and is continuously hit by crises: the Ebola epidemic a decade in the past, the coronavirus pandemic and now the ripple results of the warfare in Ukraine.
Who’re the candidates?
Out of 13 candidates, two have a reputable probability of successful: Mr. Bio, the present president, and Samura Kamara, a former authorities minister.
The election is a rematch: Mr. Bio was elected in 2018 after beating Mr. Kamara by a good margin.
Mr. Bio, 59, a former navy officer who participated in two coups throughout Sierra Leone’s civil warfare within the Nineties, briefly dominated the nation in 1996 as the top of a navy junta. He handed energy to a democratically elected president a couple of months later and went to review in america. He returned to Sierra Leone, and ran for president in 2018.
Mr. Bio has vowed to offer free well being care to all youngsters going to high school, and to advertise meals self-sufficiency.
Mr. Kamara, 72, is an economist who served as minister of finance after which international affairs when his get together was in energy within the 2010s.
He has made broad guarantees about financial improvement, alternatives for youth and the battle in opposition to local weather change.
In 2021, Mr. Kamara was charged with embezzlement in a case tied to the renovation of Sierra Leone’s consulate in New York whereas he was international minister. Mr. Kamara’s supporters say the case, which is being heard by the Supreme Court docket, is politically motivated to discredit him. The case was adjourned in order that he may run, however a ruling is anticipated in July.
What’s the president’s file?
By its schooling reform, Mr. Bio’s authorities has sought to ban faculty charges and recruited hundreds of latest academics. Greater than 3.1 million youngsters at the moment are formally at school, up from underneath two million in 2018.
However many mother and father nonetheless should pay faculty charges, and academics complain that they haven’t obtained the wage enhance they have been promised.
“The poverty is endemic and deepening,” stated Jimmy Kandeh, a Sierra Leonean professor emeritus of political science on the College of Richmond in Virginia. “Whether or not the politics will ship a change, I don’t suppose there’s a lot hope in that.”
When, the place and the way do individuals vote?
Some 3.4 million persons are registered to vote on Saturday in Sierra Leone’s 5 administrative areas. They may also elect their members of Parliament, mayor or native chiefs, and native councilors.
Observers from the African Union, the West African financial bloc generally known as ECOWAS, the European Union and the Carter Heart are monitoring the vote. There isn’t any digital voting.
What do polls predict, and when are outcomes anticipated?
Polls have Mr. Bio as the favourite. Lots of the nation’s 3.4 million voters vote alongside regional and ethnic allegiances.
Presidential candidates should get 55 p.c of the vote to win within the first spherical, and a runoff is probably going, in response to Mr. Kandeh. Outcomes are anticipated to be introduced by the electoral fee the next week. A runoff could be organized two weeks later.
For the primary time, polling officers will ship outcomes to a database run by the electoral fee through a devoted app. Nigeria examined the same methodology for the presidential election in February, however the course of was plagued with issues, and the outcomes have been delayed.
Joseph Johnson contributed analysis.