A runoff vote for the presidency of Liberia will be held between former footballer George Weah and incumbent Vice President Joseph Boakai, the electoral commission said Sunday. With tallies in from 95.6% of polling stations, Weah took 39% of the votes and Boakai 29.1%, both well short of the 50% barrier required to win outright from the first round of voting held on Tuesday.
Whoever wins the second round of voting will replace Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Africa’s first elected female head of state, who is stepping down as president after a maximum of two terms. Jerome Korkoya, the chairman of the National Elections Commission, told journalists that 1,550,923 votes had been counted and turnout was at 74.52% across the small West African nation.
The handover would represent Liberia’s first peaceful transfer of power in more than seven decades. The Liberian electoral law requires the eventual winner to have at least 50 per cent of votes cast which none of the candidates will be able to meet in this round of elections.
A run-off is thus expected between Mr. Weah, the only African to ever win the World footballer of the year award (1995) and Mr. Boakai who earlier on Sunday said he still hoped to be elected president. 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 doze 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. Weah, the first African player to win both Fifa’s World Player of the Year trophy and the Ballon d’Or, 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.
Weah says he has “gained experience” since becoming a senator in 2014, and after losing to Sirleaf again, this time as a vice-presidential candidate on the ticket of Winston Tubman, in 2011.
Both men are of indigenous descent, as opposed to the “Americo-Liberian” descendants of freed slaves who founded the Liberian nation in 1847 and have dominated its political and economic life ever since.
