Bio, whose election has ended decade-long rule in\u00a0Sierra Leone<\/a>\u00a0by the All People\u2019s Congress (APC), praised state workers and \u201cgave them assurance and expressed commitment to work with them,\u201d the spokesman for his SLPP party said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe meeting between the president and civil servants went well today and the president assured them that there will be no witch-hunting of workers,\u201d spokesman Alie Kabba told AFP.<\/p>\n Bio also called for Sierra Leone\u00a0whose 1991-2002 civil war claimed around 120,000 lives\u00a0to turn its back on \u201ctribalism and regionalism\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cI want you to work hard to deliver and be prompt and professional\u00a0don\u2019t worry, be happy,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Bio, a former soldier who briefly led a military junta more than two decades ago, won 51.81 percent of ballots in the March 31 election runoff, according to the official results released late Wednesday.<\/p>\n He defeated Samura Kamara, the APC\u2019s champion, who secured 48.19 percent of the vote.<\/p>\n The campaign was bitterly fought, marked by ugly verbal exchanges and sporadic violence, and Kamara has said his party will launch a legal battle to contest the outcome.<\/p>\n Bio called Kamara on Thursday, according to Kabba.<\/p>\n \u201cThey had a very friendly conversation and (he) plans to meet (him) soon,\u201d Kabba said.<\/p>\n Bio on Friday also named a transition team of 10 men and two women, whose first job will be to \u201cinterface\u201d with the team of the outgoing president, Ernest Bai Koroma.<\/p>\n Separately, the country\u2019s electoral commission said the APC retained most seats in the 132-seat legislature, which was contested at the same time as the presidency.<\/p>\n With two seats left to be determined, the APC had 67 seats and the SLPP 47, it said.<\/p>\n Kabba said the SLPP was confident it would be able to form a majority in parliament, working with smaller parties and individual legislators who were traditional chiefs.Cornelius Devoux, the APC\u2019s spokesman, said the party would work in the country\u2019s \u201cbest interest\u201d.<\/p>\n But he also called on the SLPP \u201cto protect APC supporters who have been attacked or threatened\u201d.<\/p>\n One of the world\u2019s poorest nations despite huge mineral and diamond deposits, Sierra Leone is recovering only gradually from war and an 2014-2016 Ebola outbreak that killed 4,000 people.<\/p>\n Its economy remains fragile with investors slowly returning, and corruption is widespread. Political loyalties are often divided along ethnic lines and traumatic memories of the civil war run deep.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n http:\/\/www.france24.com\/en\/20180407-sierra-leones-new-president-promises-no-witchhunt<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Sierra Leone\u2019s new president, Julius Maada Bio, on Friday promised civil servants they need not fear a purge despite a historic shift in the country\u2019s politics. Bio, whose election has ended decade-long rule in\u00a0Sierra Leone\u00a0by the All People\u2019s Congress (APC), praised state workers and \u201cgave them assurance and expressed commitment to work with them,\u201d the spokesman for his SLPP party… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":52,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/52"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1522"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1522\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1523,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1522\/revisions\/1523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/subsaharanafricablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}