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November 17th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda
To win outright, a candidate must gain 55 per cent of the vote and the race
may well go to a second round.
“I think the whole world is looking at Sierra Leone at the moment,”
said Jens Anders Toyberg-Frandzen, the United Nations envoy to the country.
He called the vote “a turning point in manifesting that Sierra Leone
has graduated from a post-conflict country to one that is now on the path to
development.”
The elections in the former British colony will be one of the most closely
observed in Africa this year by monitors from the European Union, the
Commonwealth and the African Union.
With rivalry between the APC and the SLPP running high, there are concerns a
close result could ignite violence, although the election campaign saw only
minor scuffles.
“Compared with our worst fears, it’s been pretty good,” said the
EU’s chief election observer, Richard Howitt.
At stake is the opportunity to oversee millions of dollars of investment in
the aid-dependent country’s resources that include gold and diamonds, oil
and iron ore.
Iron ore shipments by British companies African Minerals and London Mining are
expected to buoy the economy to 20 per cent growth this year – below
original forecasts of more than 50 per cent but still one of the highest
growth rates in the world.
Doubts remain over whether the election winner can root out the graft from
Sierra Leone’s patronage-driven politics, fairly distribute the mineral
wealth and unite the war-scarred society over tribal and political divisions.
In the electoral propaganda battle waged in Freetown’s potholed streets, APC
billboards have sought to emphasise Mr Koroma’s performance over the last
five years in building new roads, improving the power supply and bringing in
foreign investors.
“De Pa Dea Woke (The Father is working)” proclaims one pro-Koroma
billboard in the local Krio language, while another assures voters the
president’s “Action Pass Intention”.
SLPP posters hail Mr Bio as a “Father of Democracy”. His supporters
point to his role in handing over to civilian rule more than a decade ago
and rebuff accusations from critics who question his military past and
democratic credentials.
Although ethnic allegiances still shape Sierra Leone’s electoral landscape –
Mr Koroma’s APC draws support from the Temne and Limba peoples of the north,
while the Mende of the south and east traditionally vote SLPP – both
candidates face pressure to convert the mineral riches into jobs and
improved livelihoods.
But a strong consensus also exists among voters that Sierra Leone must never
be allowed to fall back into the violence of the brutal 1991-2002 war, when
thousands of civilians had their limbs hacked off by drugged-up bush
fighters.
“People are getting aware. People are no more interested in violence,”
said Alimany Barrie, a 45-year-old army corporal, as he lined up to vote in
Freetown in civilian clothes.
“They have seen that the power of development is through the ballot box,
not the bullet,” he said.
Soldiers in crisp new green camouflage and floppy bush hats joined police in
trying to control the impatient, shoving lines of voters, some of whom had
waited through the night.
At one polling station in the capital’s Cardiff Primary School, Fafata Kamara
was squeezed in a crammed line of voters snaking down a dirt road, many
women wearing colourful wraps and headscarves and carrying babies on their
backs. “Let us have good leaders to develop the country,” she said.
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