Middle East & Africa | Not so transparent

Sierra Leone’s president is re-elected in the first round

But the results look fishy

Supporters of the President of Sierra Leone, Julius Maada Bio, celebrate following his re-election
Too many ticksImage: AFP
|DAKAR

Inside the opposition headquarters people suddenly hit the floor and crawled for safety; outside, the security forces kept firing. Samura Kamara, the main opposition candidate in the presidential election the day before, circulated photos of holes in a door. “Live bullets fired at my private office,” he wrote. A woman was found dead under a window with a fist-sized hole in it. The police insisted they had merely fired tear gas to disperse a crowd in the street.

This article appeared in the Middle East & Africa section of the print edition under the headline “Anatomy of a heist”

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