Middle East & Africa | Not so transparent

Sierra Leone’s president is re-elected in the first round

But the results look fishy

Supporters of the President of Sierra Leone, Julius Maada Bio, celebrate following his re-election
Too many ticksImage: AFP
|DAKAR

Inside the opposition headquarters people suddenly hit the floor and crawled for safety; outside, the security forces kept firing. Samura Kamara, the main opposition candidate in the presidential election the day before, circulated photos of holes in a door. “Live bullets fired at my private office,” he wrote. A woman was found dead under a window with a fist-sized hole in it. The police insisted they had merely fired tear gas to disperse a crowd in the street.

This article appeared in the Middle East & Africa section of the print edition under the headline “Anatomy of a heist”

From the July 1st 2023 edition

Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents

Explore the edition

More from Middle East & Africa

Members of the new Syrian security forces stand outside a security building, in Nawa, near Daraa, Syria, Jan. 4, 2025. (

Syria’s new rulers say they are keen to integrate foreign fighters

Outsiders continue to see them as a threat

Internally displaced civilians from the camps in Munigi and Kibati, carry their belongings as they flee to Goma

Rwanda’s reckless plan to redraw the map of Africa

The fall of Goma could trigger another Congo conflict


illustration featuring three overlapping social media-style photo frames, each depicting different parts of a classic weighing scale

Three big lawsuits against Meta in Kenya may have global implications

One was prompted by the murder of an Ethiopian professor


Trump should try to end, not manage, the Middle East’s oldest conflicts

And he should see the region as more than a source of instability and arms deals

Government by social media in Somalia

Cheap data, social media and creativity are filling in for an absent state

The Gaza ceasefire is stoking violence in the West Bank

Hamas and the Israeli far right both want to destabilise the West Bank