Former international football star George Weah and Liberia’s Vice
President Joseph Boakai will face a runoff for the presidency on
November 7, the election 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 since Tuesday.
George Weah has about 10% clear lead ahead of the vice president.
Whoever wins the second round of voting will replace President Ellen
Johnson Sirleaf, Africa’s first elected female president, who is
stepping down after a maximum of two terms.
The handover would represent Liberia’s first peaceful transfer of power in more than seven decades.
National Elections Commission chairman Jerome Korkoya told journalists
that 1,550,923 votes had been counted and turnout was at 74.52 percent
across the small west African nation.
Three other candidates took a significant share of votes, with veteran
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.
According to AFP, these candidates will now decide which contender they
will direct their supporters to follow in the November 7 runoff
election.
