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Claim: A popular scholar, Chernor Bah, posted a claim on Facebook, alleging that “President Julius Maada Bio continued as President in 2023 without election results.”
Verdict! Misleading! According to the 2023 official Presidential elections announced by the Electoral Commission for Sierra Leone (ECSL), President Bio was re-elected to office after polling more than 55% of the votes cast.
Full Text
In the early hours of June 24, 2023, most Sierra Leoneans, if not all, queued to cast their votes for their presidential candidates.
Thirteen candidates had contested the election, including the leading candidates: Julius Maada Bio of the Sierra Leone Peoples’ Party (SLPP) and Samura Willson Kamara of the All People’s Congress (APC).
The election determined the country’s destiny for the next five years.
After polling on June 24, 2023, the then-Chief Electoral Commissioner, Mohamed Konewui Konneh, announced 60% of provisional results that had been tallied from the votes cast.
As reported by Mano Reporters, President Bio had scored 1,067,666 votes cast while his primary contender, Samura Kamara, trailed him with 793,751.
Supporters of the SLPP rallied on the streets after President Bio was declared the leading candidate in the provisional results announced by ECSL’s Konneh.
However, the APC rejected the results, citing irregularities and a lack of transparency in the ECSL’s vote tabulation.
Even so, ECS’s Konneh announced the final 40% of the results later, making President Bio the leading candidate in the disputed election.
However, a popular scholar, Chernoh Bah, posted a claim on Facebook, alleging that President Bio continued as president in 2023 without an election result.
The claim reads in full, “In 2018, Maada Bio became president with a 2% lead against an unpopular incumbent. He continued as president in 2023 without an election result. Now, Bio says his party will continue in office after 2028. How do they hope to rig the next elections?”
When the claim was made on August 3, 2025, it had already gained 225 likes, 53 comments, and nine shares.
The majority of the comments did not object to his claim but believed it.
DUBAWA decided to fact-check the claim due to its mandate to amplify truth.
Verification
Firstly, DUBAWA reviewed historic documents on the 2018 and 2023 Presidential Elections to verify the claim.
According to our investigation on Sierra Leone Web, President Bio had won the 2018 presidential elections by a 2% margin, scoring 51.8% and beating his primary contender, Samura Kamara.
However, we did not find evidence supporting the claim that he continued in office without an election result.
DUBAWA also found that after the 2023 presidential election in Sierra Leone, the European Union had criticised the election, citing claims of “statistical inconsistencies and lack of transparency in the electoral process by the ECSL.”
While it’s true that President Bio won a disputed election in 2023, we did not find any evidence supporting Chernoh Bah’s claim that he continued as President without election results.
A further search on the official ECSL website found that President Bio was re-elected to office on June 27, 2023.
According to official presidential results announced by the then-Chief Electoral Commissioner of ECSL, Mohamed Konewui Konneh, President Bio was constitutionally re-elected after receiving 56.17% of the votes cast.
Our investigation also proved that President Bio reached the 55% constitutional threshold that prevents a run-off election, according to the declaration made by ECSL.
The declaration by ECL can be found below.
Other credible sources, such as International IDEA, Al-Jazeera, and the BBC, reported that President Bio was declared president after ECSL announced the election results.
Other evidence found in the State House archive also showed that President Bio was immediately sworn in hours after ECSL declared him the winner of the 2023 election.
Conclusion
While it’s true that President Bio won the 2018 election with a 2% margin, it’s not true that he continued as president without election results in 2023. Our investigation found that he was constitutionally elected after the election results were announced by the country’s official electoral body, ECSL. On June 27, 2023, 40% of the votes cast were announced by ECL, declaring President Bio the winner of the disputed election. Chernoh Bah’s claim is misleading.
