Opposition leader Ernest Bai Koroma won Sierra Leone's presidential election after a run-off vote marked by tensions and some ballot fraud in the war-scarred West African state, electoral officials said on Monday.
The National Electoral Commission (NEC) declared the 53-year-old candidate of the All People's Congress (APC) the winner of the September 8 poll despite a threat by the ruling Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP) to challenge the result in court.
Koroma, a former insurance executive turned politician who was runner-up in a previous 2002 presidential election, was due to be sworn in as head of state later on Monday. This year's election was seen as a test of the former British colony's recovery from a 1991-2002 civil war, one of modern Africa's most brutal in which 50,000 people were killed and children were kidnapped, drugged and forced to fight.
Cheering supporters of Koroma, wearing the APC's red colours, celebrated in the streets of the coastal capital Freetown, blowing whistles, honking car horns and dancing.
The NEC said Koroma had won with 54.6 percent of valid votes, defeating his SLPP rival, Vice-President Solomon Berewa, who had 45.4 percent. Voter turnout was around 68 percent. International observers had described the polls as generally transparent but had also reported some fraud. The official election results can be challenged by petition to the Supreme Court within seven days of their announcement.