Monday 16 October 2017,\u00a0Monrovia<\/p>\n
Former international footballer will compete against vice-president in race to succeed Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.<\/p>\n
The former international footballer George Weah and Liberia\u2019s vice-president, Joseph Boakai, will face a runoff for the country\u2019s presidency on 7 November, the electoral commission announced on Sunday.<\/p>\n
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<\/a>.<\/p>\n Whoever wins the second round of voting will replace Ellen Johnson Sirleaf<\/a>, Africa\u2019s first elected female head of state, who is stepping down as president after a maximum of two terms.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n The handover would represent Liberia\u2019s first peaceful transfer of power in more than seven decades.<\/p>\n \u201cNow there are two clear choices. We believe we are the viable alternative,\u201d Wilmot Paye, the national chairman of Boakai\u2019s Unity party, told AFP.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not a question of who\u2019s leading, it\u2019s a question of who will win the race. And ultimately we\u2019ll win the race,\u201d Paye added, suggesting that votes for the 18 unsuccessful candidates who lost in the first round would move to Boakai.<\/p>\n Wilson Tarpeh, the campaign manager for Weah\u2019s Coalition for Democratic Change, said his party was \u201cprepared for a runoff, and we are confident that we are going to win a runoff\u201d.<\/p>\n Three other candidates took a significant share of votes, with the veteran opposition leader Charles Brumskine at 9.8%; former Coca-Cola executive Alexander Cummings at 7.1% and former-warlord-turned-preacher Prince Johnson at 7.0%.<\/p>\n These candidates will now decide which runoff contender they will direct their supporters to follow, holding significant influence over the final results.<\/p>\n \u201cWe will do anything legally possible to strengthen ourselves and if that means we have to talk to other people, as long as it\u2019s not unlawful, we will do that,\u201d Tarpeh added, hinting at strategic alliances with other parties.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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 \u201cSleepy Joe\u201d for his propensity to doze at public events.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n This is Weah\u2019s second attempt at the presidency after losing to Sirleaf in 2005.<\/p>\n Weah, the first African player to win both Fifa\u2019s World Player of the Year trophy and the Ballon d\u2019Or, was largely absent from Liberia<\/a> during the 1989-2003 civil war period, playing for a string of top-flight European teams including PSG and AC Milan.<\/p>\n Weah says he has \u201cgained experience\u201d 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.<\/p>\n Both men are of indigenous descent, as opposed to the \u201cAmerico-Liberian\u201d descendants of freed slaves who founded the Liberian nation in 1847 and have dominated its political and economic life ever since.<\/p>\n