S Leone opposition holds lead in presidency race

FREETOWN, Aug 18 (Reuters) The main opposition candidate holds a comfortable lead in Sierra Leone's presidential race with four-fifths of votes counted today, with a second round looking probable in the war-scarred West African state.

Ernest Bai Koroma has received 44 per cent of valid votes cast while Vice President Solomon Berewa candidate for the ruling Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP) polled 38 per cent, the electoral commission said.

With 81 per cent of votes counted, final results are expected next week. A runoff is due to be held in September if no candidate wins 55 per cent in the first round.

The election, the first since UN peacekeepers withdrew two years ago after a brutal 1991-2002 civil war, showed the country divided broadly along ethnic and geographical lines.

Koroma's All People's Congress (APC) has performed strongly in the north and west of the former British colony. It has also managed to poach more votes than expected in some eastern and southern areas such as Kono, Bo and Kenema, traditionally SLPP territory, amid anger at rampant graft.

Berewa's share of the vote has been reduced by the PMDC, a breakaway group which split from the SLPP in 2006 and whose leader, Charles Margai, was on 14 per cent.

Many ordinary Sierra Leoneans say they are tired of the SLPP's failure to tackle corruption, which analysts and diplomats say means that badly-needed aid is being squandered.

Sierra Leone is the highest per capita recipient of British aid.

Any new government will face high expectations for change in a country where unemployment tops 60 per cent and most people survive on less than a dollar a day.

Anger at corruption and high unemployment lay at the root of the civil war, which was fuelled by rebels' sales of illegal blood diamonds to ex-warlord Charles Taylor's rule in Liberia.

Taylor is now on trial in The Hague on war crimes charges for his role in backing the Revolutionary United Front rebels.

Reuters SZ VP0246