(9 Sep 2007) SHOTLIST
1. Wide of votes being counted
2. Close-up of votes being counted
3. Various of votes being counted
4. Wide of police officer attempting to hit people in crowd with stick
5. Wide of crowd
6. Wide of police officer with stick walking away from crowd
7. Mid of military police carrying guns
8. Wide of soldier controlling crowd
9. Wide of soldier with crowd of people in the background
10. Mid of soldier speaking to crowd of people, supporters and police fighting
11. Wide of Marie Anne Isler-Beguin, EU chief observer, with colleague
12. SOUNDBITE: (English) Marie Anne Isler-Beguin, EU chief election observer:
"Of course we have to wait, everybody is waiting all the process, to say if this election will be credible, transparent, and so on. We agree with that. But if everybody - the international community, our mission, the different missions - says that 'okay, these elections are credible and transparent', they have to accept the result."
13. Wide of Marie Anne Isler-Beguin EU chief observer, with colleague
STORYLINE:
Sierra Leone held runoff elections for a new president on Saturday, a tense race that will test the diamond-rich but war-battered West African nation's ability to stand on its own after UN peacekeepers withdrew two years ago.
The poll was held against the backdrop of an electoral campaign that saw political rivals clash with fists and stones, but voting appeared to go smoothly in most places with no reports of violence.
Head of the EU election observer mission, Marie Anne Isler-Beguin, said that everyone was waiting for the whole process to be completed before declaring if the election was credible and transparent, but "if everybody - the international community, our mission, the different missions - says that 'okay, these elections are credible and transparent', they have to accept the result."
The UN special representative to Sierra Leone, Victor Angelo, also called on both candidates to accept the outcome.
Electoral officials began gathering voting materials after polls closed and vote counting began. Final results must be released within 12 days.
The race is expected to be a close one, pitting opposition leader Ernest Bai Koroma, 54, against Vice President Solomon Berewa, 69, of the ruling party.
Koroma led the first round August 11, winning 44 percent of the vote, compared with Berewa's 38 percent.
Neither candidate won the majority needed to win in the first round.
On Saturday, a simple majority will suffice for victory.
Trailing in third place last time was lawyer and former Cabinet minister Charles Francis Margai, with 14 percent.
Margai's party broke away from the governing coalition and is backing Koroma, leading many to believe Koroma has a strong shot at returning his opposition party to power for the first time since it was ousted in a 1992 coup, a year after a brutal rebel uprising began.
Sierra Leone has struggled to rebuild since the war ended in 1992, but corruption remains entrenched and unemployment remains high.
The country is ranked second to last on the UN Human Development Index, 176 out of 177 nations.
Turnout started low but picked up later on Saturday. Voters said some people stayed at home because they feared violence or intimidation.
Though no fatalities have been reported during campaigning, even low-level clashes are significant given the country's bloody past.
Party offices have been burned down in some places and, in one of the gravest incidents, mobs barricaded roads and hurled stones at Koroma's convoy, forcing him to flee.
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