FREETOWN: Sierra Leone readied on Friday for a high-stakes election in which incumbent Ernest Koroma is seeking a second term in what is billed as a tight race with his main rival Julius Maada Bio.
Saturday's election is the third since the end of a brutal, 11-year civil war which ended in 2002. It will provide a crucial yardstick of the west African nation's recovery and put the victors in charge of a lucrative mining boom.
In the capital Freetown, a hodge-podge of new construction, newly paved roads and slums recently ravaged by a cholera outbreak, the stakes are equally high for citizens for whom life is still a daily struggle.
President Ernest Koroma of the All People's Congress (APC) has been praised for the infrastructure boom, although his detractors say it has been marred by rampant corruption.
He hopes to use the impending windfall from mineral resources to finish his governments projects. The country is rich in diamonds, iron-ore, gold and the mineral rutile.
"We are seeing a lot of infrastructure, roads are being built, nice buildings the country is moving and we keep on going forward and for that I am going to vote for him (Koroma)," said Santos Kamara, 39, who sells cellphones on the street.
But supporters of the former military leader Julius Maada Bio argue that they cannot eat roads, electricity and fancy new buildings.
Ibrahima Ba, 28, said the improvements under Koroma were "just cosmetic things ... to get food for a day is a burden for us."
While Koroma is seen as the favourite, Bio has garnered significant support and the vote is expected to go to a run-off.
Koroma, 59, came into power in 2007. While that election was marked by several incidents of violence, they were followed by a peaceful transfer of power between the ousted Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP) and the APC.
While eight parties are contesting the presidential vote, these two parties have led the political scene since independence.
The election marks the first time the heavily donor-funded Sierra Leone government is bearing most of the poll costs, as well as the first time presidential, parliamentary and local elections are being held simultaneously.
An initiative called National Election Watch has set up a network of more than 9,000 observers around the country. From a "Situation Room" in Freetown an 18-strong team will monitoring screens containing live data from polling stations.
Coded SMS reports will flag up fraud incidents, voter demographics, turn-out, and send out unofficial results from individual polling stations as they are counted.
Similar initiatives were used in recent elections in Senegal and Liberia.
"This process will give legitimacy and integrity to the elections, to the entire elections process because, like I said to you, it's real-time analysis," said Ngolo Katta, spokesperson for National Election Watch.
Sierra Leone has sent 1,000 local observers around the country and international observers have been sent from the African Union, European Union, Commonwealth, Carter Centre and regional bloc ECOWAS.
"As far as humanly possible, everything is ready for the elections," Christiana Thorpe, chairperson of the electoral body said in a radio interview.
She said parliamentary results would be available as soon as a constituency had been counted, but "no result will be announced for (the) president until all results had been tallied."
To win in the first round, a presidential candidate needs at least 55 percent of votes. Some 2.6 million voters have registered and final results are expected by November 26.
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