Polls open in delayed Liberia presidential run-off

26 Décembre 2017

Monrovia, Liberia, December 26 (Infosplusgabon) - Polls have opened in Liberia as voters choose a new president in the delayed presidential run-off on Tuesday that pits ex-football star George Weah of the Coalition for Democratic Change (CDC) against outgoing vice president Joseph Boakai of the ruling Unity Party (UP).

Voting will be between 0800 and 1800 GMT.

Liberia has 2.18 million voters out of an estimated population of 4.5 million.

The first round balloting on 10 October was held in 2,080 polling precincts (centres) with 5,390 polling places (stations) nationwide.

The winner will replace President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, a Nobel Laureate and Africa’s first democratically elected female president. Her constitutionally allowed two-terms end by 16 January 2018.

Sirleaf Johnson is Africa's first female president and 2011 Nobel Peace laureate, which she shared with Leymah Gbowee of Liberia and Tawakkol Karman of Yemen.

They were recognised "for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women's rights to full participation in peace-building work".

The second round of voting was to have been held on 7 November, but was delayed because of legal challenges after the first round of voting.

Weah, 51, a former FIFA World Footballer of the Year, polled 39% of the votes in the first round while Boakai, 73, had 29%. A candidate needed more that 50% of the votes to win the first round. There were 20 candidates, 17 of them sponsored by political parties.

One of the losing parties, Liberty Party (LP), filed a petition claiming there were irregularities and fraud in the first round balloting. The case was escalated to the Supreme Court, which ordered the National Elections Commission (NEC), to address the complaints of the LP.

NEC heard and dismissed the petition as lacking merit, but the LP again went to the Supreme Court, which upheld the NEC decision, and further directed the Commission to undertake some remedial actions, particularly cleaning up the voters' register and avoiding identified lapses in the 10 October vote.

The ruling United Party (UP) then took the matter to the Supreme Court, with the apex Court giving its final ruling on 21 December that the presidential run-off should go ahead.

The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) has sent a 29-member Short-Term Observation Mission headed by Ghana’s immediate past President John Dramani Mahama to observe the vote.

He met the two candidates on Monday and called for a peaceful election.

FIN/INFOSPLUSGABON/ZRT/GABON 2017

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