Sierra Leone opposition claim parliament majority

FREETOWN, Aug 16 (Reuters) Sierra Leone's main opposition party said it had won a parliamentary majority in weekend elections and vowed to mount a legal challenge if official results still trickling in showed otherwise.

The opposition All People's Congress (APC) said yesterday it had won 61 of a total 112 seats in parliament, based on results published outside polling stations around the West African country and collated by its party officials.

The national electoral commission said that with just over a third of votes counted, the APC's leader, Ernest Bai Koroma, was also in the lead in presidential elections held alongside the parliamentary vote on Saturday, with 46 per cent.

The country's vice president, Solomon Berewa, candidate for the ruling Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP), had so far polled 35 per cent, the commission said.

His share of the vote was reduced by the PMDC, a breakaway group which split off from the SLPP in 2006 and whose leader was on 15 percent.

The APC urged its supporters to wait for the full official results of both polls before celebrating.

''Our leader is calling on all Sierra Leoneans from all parties to exercise patience, remain calm, and not to behave like the proverbial young antelope who danced himself lame before the main dance,'' APC spokesman Alpha Kanu said.

The polls were the first since UN peacekeepers left the former British colony two years ago and are seen as a test of Sierra Leone's recovery from a 1991-2002 civil war.

Electoral materials were transported to more than 6,000 polling stations in the country's savannah, jungle and mountains by army trucks, canoes and even porters. Results are only slowly trickling in, some being helicoptered to the capital Freetown.

Officials have said a runoff, due to be held in September if no presidential candidate wins 55 per cent, is looking likely.

The electoral commission has said turnout on the basis of results collated so far was around 75 per cent high by West African standards.

Five years after the end of its diamond-fuelled war, which killed 50,000 people, Sierra Leone remains the second least developed nation on earth, according to UN statistics. Most people earn less than a dollar a day and lack basic amenities.

Koroma had been expected to mount a strong challenge to Berewa, with many Sierra Leoneans angry at the failure of the SLPP to curb rampant corruption which many voters believe has drained off substantial foreign aid since the war.

Reuters SZ VP0455