While the City Councils and the Bonthe Municipal Council have Mayors, District Councils have Chairpersons as heads.

Voters in Sierra Leone went to the polls on Saturday 5th July 2008 for the Local Council Elections, it was held on partisan basis, using the first past - the post system. Independent candidates were also free to contest. In other words, a candidate for the Local Council Elections may present him/herself to the electorate as a political party member (in which case the candidate will use the symbol associated with the party, and will be sponsored by the party), or as an individual or independent candidate. Independent candidate did not use any political party symbol, but select a symbol from the range of symbols presented by NEC. Councillors, Chairpersons, Mayors of Councils are elected directly by universal adult suffrage, by simply majority vote.

Two elections were conducted simultaneously, one to elect the Mayor/Chairperson and the other to elect Councillor's. Each registered elector was given two ballot papers. The first ballot paper was to select the Mayor/Chairperson of the local council, while the second ballot paper for the election of the ward Councillor(s). All votes cast in each elections (i.e. Mayor/Chairpersons and Councillors) were aggregated across all wards in the locality for the Mayor/Chairperson; and across each ward in the case of the Councillors. The candidate with the highest votes casts in the locality or ward becomes Mayor/Chairperson or Councillors respectively.

The election was monitored by observers and it was peaceful, free and credible.