Weah literally Liberia's next president after initial runoff results

29 Décembre 2017

Monrovia, Liberia, December 29 (Infosplusgabon) - Ex-footballer George Weah took a comfortable lead Thursday after the National Elections Commission (NEC) announced preliminary results from Liberia presidential runoff polls held 26 December.

Weah was pitted against incumbent Vice President Joseph Boakai who both emerged from the first round of the presidential and representative election on 10 October.

A series of legal wrangling pushed the presidential runoff to 26 December.

NEC chairman Jerome Korkoyah said Weah obtained 61.5 percent of the overall votes counted, while Boakai got 38.5 percent.

He said 11 of Liberia’s 15 political sub-divisions have reported results 100 percent and that the other four had largely reported the results from the polls.

He said total turnout for the polls was 56.0 percent and that total votes was 1.1 million of the 2.1 million voters registered by the commission.

The first round of the of the elections saw 1.6 million voters turn out at the polls, meaning a hefty half a million did not go to the polls in the second round.

Korkoyah said the final results would be announced Friday.

The results show that Weah won his opponent Boakai so far in almost all the regions, except home county, announced Thursday by NEC.

Immediately after the announcement, the streets of Monrovia and its environs were flooded with mainly young people on whose backs Weah rode to the presidency of Liberia.

FIN/INFOSPLUSGABON/ERD/GABON 2017

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