Sierra Leone: top UN envoy welcomes successful local elections

The top United Nations envoy to Sierra Leone today congratulated the people of the West African nation for yesterday's successful local council elections.

In a statement issued in the capital Freetown, the Secretary-General's Acting Executive Representative Michael Schulenburg said that he is “is pleased to observe that polling for the elections of Saturday 5 July were generally conducted in a peaceful and orderly manner.”

Further, he said that aside from a few exceptions, polling centres opened on time and that Sierra Leoneans were able to exercise their right to vote.

Mr. Schulenburg lauded the National Electoral Commission, the Political Parties Registration Commission, the Sierra Leone Police and other institutions for their work in making sure the elections were conducted properly.

The Representative noted that the country – was wracked by a prolonged civil war during most of the 1990s – set very high standards globally with the “exemplary conduct” of last year's elections. He called on Sierra Leoneans to “ensure that subsequent electoral processes, including the counting, collation and certification of the election results, are finalized without rancour and that any dispute which might arise is resolved within the bounds of the law.”