Скачать или смотреть FILE Kabbah wins landmark vote

(19 May 2002)

FILE: Sierra Leone - 14 May 2002
1. Sierra Leonean President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah greeting supporters outside polling station as he arrives to cast the first vote in the elections
2. Kabbah registering and receiving voting card
3. Various of Kabbah voting, UPSOUND (English) Kabbah: "It's meant to be a secret, ok?"
4. Supporters applauding as Kabbah's car drives past
5. Various shots of UNAMSIL troops
6. Various of polling station with queues outside station
7. Voters queuing
8. Amputees queuing
9. Amputee Lamin Jusu Jaka, holding ID pass with his hooks, pan to face
10. Various of Jaka voting
11. SOUNDBITE (English) Lamin Jusu Jaka, voter:
"It's going to be a new beginning of life because compared to the previous ten years of war which have taken place in this country people are looking to reinstate another new democratic government which will be able to address the ideas of the people of this country."
12. Various of voters queuing
13. Voting slips
14. Voters registering

STORYLINE:

President Ahmed Tejan Kabbah, credited with helping to end Sierra Leone's ruthless 10-year-old civil war, won re-election on Sunday in a landmark vote in the conflict-scarred West African nation.

Kabbah headed immediately to a swearing-in ceremony in the capital Freetown after the result was announced by the National Electoral Commission.

Kabbah received 70.6 percent of the vote in Tuesday's elections - where Kabbah is seen here voting - well-over the 55 percent he needed to avoid a runoff.

The second-place candidate, Ernest Koroma of the All Peoples Congress that once governed Sierra Leone, received 22.35 percent.

The vote signalled a sweeping rejection by Sierra Leone's voters of the rebel Revolutionary United Front - the fighters who waged an bloody 10-year campaign bent on winning control of the government and of diamond fields.

The rebel campaign left tens of thousands of Sierra Leone's people dead. Countless more live today with the scars of the rebels' signature atrocity - the lopping-off of hands, feet, lips and ears with machetes.

With their leader, Foday Sankoh, in jail, the former rebels' presidential candidate pulled only 1.7 percent of the vote, among nine candidates. The former rebels also failed to win a single one of the 112 parliament seats up for election.

Kabbah's party, the Sierra Leone Peoples' Party, won 83 seats. Ernest Koroma's All People's Congress received 27 seats. The Peace and Liberation Party of one-time junta leader Johnny Paul Koroma - who switched back and forth from rebel to government sides during the war - won two seats.

Announcement of Kabbah's victory sent Kabbah's supporters running out to dance in the streets - singing and cheering, waving the palm-frond symbols of their party. Taxis wove among them in Sierra Leone's war-battered capital, blaring their horns.

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