Observers of Liberia's presidential runoff poll meet

27 Décembre 2017

Monrovia, Liberia, December 27 (Infosplusgabon) -  Ghana's former President and Head of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Observation Mission, John Mahama, on Wednesday met with heads of other International observer groups to review the Tuesday's presidential runoff vote.

Their preliminary assessment is that balloting took place relatively smoothly and peacefully across the country, with all the potential for credible outcome, an ECOWAS official said.

The observers also noted improvements compared to the first round of 10 October.

Meanwhile, the National Elections Commission (NEC) has urged the citizens to ignore all results that do not emanate from it.

NEC Chairman Jerome Korkoya said counting and tallying of results were continuing at the National Collation Centres while the release of provisional results would start later on Wednesday and the final results within the next 72 hours.

At the observers' review meeting were also representatives of the African Union, European Union, Carter Center, US National Democratic Institute and the Electoral Institute Sustainable Democracy in Africa (EISA).

Liberians went to the polls on Tuesday to choose a new president in the delayed presidential run-off with the candidates being ex-football star George Weah of the Coalition for Democratic Change (CDC) and outgoing vice president Joseph Boakai of the ruling Unity Party (UP).

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.

FIN/INFOSPLUSGABON/YHK/GABON 2017

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