Liberia: George Weah in presidential election runoff

Polls closed for the presidential election runoff in Liberia on Tuesday evening after voters were asked to decide whether to give current incumbent George Weah a second term despite a controversial record, or to turn instead to 78-year-old former vice-president Joseph Boakai, a veteran of Liberian politics.

Former football star Weah, the only African to win the prestigious Ballon d'Or in 1995, had a narrow lead in the first round of voting on October 10, winning 43.83% of the vote to Boakai's 43.44% – a razor-thin margin of just 7,126 votes and well short of the 50% needed to secure outright victory.

Weah and Boakai also faced off in the runoff in 2017 when Weah won with more than 61%, but observers are expecting the second round of voting to be much closer this time around.

The electoral commission has up to 15 days to publish the final result.

'Calm and order' reported at voting stations

This year's election is the first since the United Nations ended its peacekeeping mission in Liberia in 2018, set up after more than 250,000 people died in two civil wars between 1989 and 2003.

There were no reports of violence or other major incidents during the vote. 

The head of the ECOWAS Election Observation Mission to Liberia, Attahiru Jega, praised the "calm and order prevailing in the various voting centres visited" around Monrovia, the regional bloc's commission said in a statement.

"He stressed the need for a climate of peace, tolerance and consensus around the electoral process until its completion," the statement added.

Will George Weah win a second term?

Since then, Weah, who grew up in the slums of the capital city, Monrovia, but went on to play for top European football clubs including Paris Saint-Germain and AC Milan, is widely seen as approachable and peaceful.

Popular among younger voters, he says he has supported education, built roads and hospitals, and brought electricity into homes.

"I think he is the best person to vote for," Taiyee Success Iledare, a 22-year-old student waiting to cast her ballot in Duazon, a suburb Monrovia, told the French AFP news agency.

"When you look around you see a lot of development. So when he wins I want him to make sure he deals with the issue of drugs that is destroying our young people."

Weah was also president when the Covid-19 pandemic hit at a time when Liberia was still recovering economically from civil war and the 2014-2016 Ebola epidemic.

Can Joseph Boakai combat corruption?

But his detractors say he is disconnected from the realities of skyrocketing prices and shortages in a country where a fifth of the population lives on less than $2.15 a day, according to the World Bank.

Rival Boakai, a political veteran who has held a multitude of positions in the public and private sectors and is known colloquially as JNB, also blames Weah for a series of scandals and corruption, which is endemic in Liberia and has only worsened on the incumbent's watch, according to Transparency International.

"I feel that [Boakai] will make a change," said Irene Palwor, a 41-year-old market trader in Monrovia. "JNB will create job opportunities for women and for the young."

How many people can vote?

Turnout appeared to be lower than the record 78.86% in the first round last month, when the presidential vote was coupled with parliamentary elections.

Shorter queues were reported outside polling stations in comparison to the first round.

Another key point will be who the 6% of voters whose ballots were invalidated in the first round favor in the runoff.

More than 2.4 million people were registered to vote, with polls open between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m.

"We want to thank all Liberians who left their bed this morning. Stay on the line and vote," the head of the national elections commission, Davidetta Browne-Lansanah, told state radio, while Reuters reported seeing queues of people at five different polling stations in Monrovia on Tuesday.

The electoral commission has 15 days to publish the results but could do so sooner, one of its officials said.

ab, mf/msh (AFP, Reuters)