Former international footballer George Weah and Liberia’s Vice
President Joseph Boakai will face a runoff for the
country’s presidency on November 7, the electoral commission announced on
Sunday.
With tallies
in from 95.6 percent of polling stations, Weah took 39.0 percent of the votes
and Boakai 29.1 percent, both well short of the 50-percent barrier required to
win outright from the first round of voting held on Tuesday.
Whoever wins
the second round of voting will replace President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf,
Africa’s first elected female head of state, who is stepping down after a
maximum of two terms.
National
Elections Commission Chairman Jerome Korkoya told journalists that 1,550,923
votes had been counted and turnout was at 74.52 percent across this small West
African nation.
The handover
would represent Liberia’s first peaceful transfer of power in more than seven
decades.
“Now there are
two clear choices. We believe we are the viable alternative,” Wilmot Paye,
national chairman of Boakai’s Unity Party, told AFP.
“It’s not a
question of who is leading, it’s a question of who will win the race. And
ultimately we’ll win the race,” Paye added, suggesting that votes for the 18
unlucky candidates who lost in the first round would move to Boakai.
Wilson Tarpeh,
campaign manager for Weah’s Coalition for Democratic Change (CDC) said his
party was “prepared for a runoff, and we are confident that we are going to win
a run-off.”
Three other
candidates took a significant share of votes, with veteran opposition leader
Charles Brumskine at 9.8 percent; former Coca-Cola executive Alexander Cummings
at 7.1 percent; and former-warlord-turned-preacher Prince Johnson at 7.0
percent.
These
candidates will now decide which runoff contender they will direct their
supporters to follow, holding significant sway over the final results.
“We will do
anything legally possible to strengthen ourselves. And if that means we have to
talk to other people, as long as it’s not unlawful, we will do that,” Tarpeh of
the CDC added, hinting at strategic alliances with other parties.
Clear choice
Liberian
voters have a clear choice between an establishment candidate in Boakai, who
has served in governments for more than three decades, and the wildly popular
but politically inexperienced Weah.
Boakai
presents himself as an everyman who transcended his humble beginnings, and has
attempted to craft a more energetic image after earning the unfortunate title
of “Sleepy Joe” for his propensity to fall asleep at public events.
The
vice-president has also had to undertake a delicate balancing act to promote
his record in government, while distancing himself from Sirleaf to define his
own vision.
This is Weah’s
second attempt at the presidency after losing to Sirleaf in 2005.
The first African player to win both FIFA’s World Player of the Year
trophy and the Ballon d’Or, Weah was largely absent from Liberia during the
1989-2003 civil war period, playing for a string of top-flight European teams
including PSG and AC Milan.
Source: Vanguard.
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