Freetown, 27 June 2023 (dpa/MIA) - Sierra Leone's President Julius Maada Bio has been re-elected for a second term in office, despite soaring unemployment and inflation.

Bio received 56.1% of the ballots to defeat his main challenger Samura Kamara, who garnered 41.1%, the electoral commission announced Tuesday.

Bio barely avoided a run-off by obtaining slightly more than the 55% of votes need for a first-round win.

Bios' Sierra Leone People's Party (SLPP) and Kamara's All People's Congress (APC) party have dominated the small West African nation along ethnic and regional lines for decades.

A total of 13 candidates contested the race held on Saturday. Bio had also prevailed over Kamara in 2018.

Sierra Leone experienced one of Africa's worst civil wars from 1991 to 2002, with tens of thousands of people killed. In 2014, an Ebola outbreak plunged the country into another years-long crisis from which the economy has never fully recovered.

Many people, especially in rural areas, live in extreme poverty. Some 60% of young people are unemployed, and the price of basic foodstuffs has multiplied.

Bio, who ruled two months after a military coup in 1996 and helped transition to the first free elections in decades, is revered by many as the country's "father of modern democracy."

His government, in power since 2018, introduced free schooling, promoted equality, and spearheaded science and infrastructure initiatives.

But Bio has also come in for criticism for his treatment of opponents.

In August, more than 20 anti-government demonstrators and six police officers were killed in clashes.

Photo: EPA