Sierra Leone’s new president, Julius Maada Bio on Saturday held a meeting with the defeated presidential candidate in last month’s run-off election, Samura Kamara.
Both leaders held talks towards ensuring peaceful transition and formation of new government after a closely contested poll.
Samura Kamara told reporters after the meeting that he congratulated the new leader and would now support the new administration.
“I’m here to congratulate our new president with executive members of my party,” Kamara said after the meeting in Maada Bio’s residence.
The new president who is a former military leader was sworn in as new president of the country in a hotel this month.
The 53-year old Maada Bio from the Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP), won 51.81 percent of votes cast in the election held on March 31.
He beat his rival and then ruling All People’s Congress (APC) candidate Samura Kamara, who garnered 48.19 percent of the votes.
Bio said in his speech after taking the oath that “This is the dawn of a new era. The people of this great nation have voted to take a new direction”.
Kamara said his party would support the new president but asked him to protect his supporters.
“No Sierra Leonean should suffer for belonging to any party, no one should shed blood for politics,” he said.
The former President Ernest Bai Koroma stepped down after his maximum two terms in office.
Sierra Leone witnessed a brutal, diamond-fuelled civil war in the 1990s and the new president faces a huge task of trying to fix the West African country’s economy, still recovering from the war and recent Ebola epidemic.
Source: Africafeeds.com
