Sierra Leone's People party SLPP presidential candidate and former general Julius Mada Bio.
Updated 0829 GMT (1629 HKT) April 5, 2018.
Lagos, Nigeria (CNN)Sierra Leone's election commission has declared the former military leader Julius Maada Bio president after a tight run-off vote.
Bio, leader of the Sierra Leone People's Party and former junta head of the West African nation in 1996, took 51.81 percent of the vote, beating Samura Kamara of the outgoing All People's Congress, who won 48.19 in the poll on Wednesday.
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The retired brigadier was sworn-in and then took his oath of office, minutes after the declaration of the result by the country's chief justice, Abdulai Cham, the Sierra Leone Telegraph reported.
Bio succeeds President Ernest Bai Koroma, who leaves office after serving two five-year terms. Koroma came to power in 2007 in the shadow of a decade-long civil war that ended in 2002.
Vote counting in the run-off was delayed after disagreement over the tallying method.
The election went to a second round after neither of the candidates achieved the required 55% of the ballot in the first round.
Bio led the first round of elections with 43.3% and Kamara, a former finance minister, followed closely with 42.7%. Sierra Leoneans picked from a pool of 16 candidates in the first round, which was held on March 7.
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Bio will be faced with the challenge of reducing extreme poverty and rebuilding the West African country for its 7.3 million citizens.
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The country has endured several devastating events in past years, including mudslides last year which left hundreds dead in the capital, Freetown.
This was preceded by an Ebola crisis in 2014 which claimed nearly 4,000 lives.
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