Liberia: George Weah Faces Tight Run-Off To Stay President
By Usman Ahmed Kanempress
11th November 2023
Liberians vote for a new president on Tuesday in a tight run-off between President George Weah, an ex-international football star, and political veteran Joseph Boakai.
The United Nations has urged all parties “to contribute to a peaceful environment”, in the first elections since peacekeepers left the civil country.
57 years old Weah, and 78 years old Boakai, finished neck and neck in the first round of voting on October 10.
Neither could get an absolute majority.
Campaigning for the run-off has been low-key, with each side trying to secure endorsements from the 18 contenders who lost in the first round.
Observers anticipate a close-fought rematch of the 2017 second round when Weah easily defeated Boakai with 61.5 per cent against 38.5 per cent.
Weah was only marginally ahead in October with 43.83 per cent to Boakai’s 43.44 per cent.
“The run-off between Boakai and Weah will be very tight,” The officer in charge of civil society group Accountability Lab Liberia, Lawrence Yealue, told Kanempress.
Weah got into politics after a career as a striker for top-flight European teams and is popular among Liberia’s largely young population.
He is the only African to win football’s most prestigious individual award, the Ballon d’Or, in 1995.
Weah was brought up in the Monrovia slums.
He was absent from Liberia during the 1989-2003 civil wars which killed over 250,000 people.
Some citizens complained Weah has failed to tackle corruption and improve life for the poorest amid rising prices and shortages of basic necessities.
“Our economic system has broken down, the sellers are more than the buyers. Our health facilities have broken down, our educational system has broken down,” Shad Foster, from Monrovia’s Duazon neighbourhood, said.
If Weah wins a second term, he said he feared that “things will be worse”.
On the other hand, Boakai was vice president from 2006 to 2018 under Africa’s first elected female president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.
Boakai held various state and oil industry jobs.
According to him his Unity Party wants to rescue citizens from poor governance and corruption.
Boakai has pledged to improve infrastructure, invest in agriculture and restore the image of the country, still recovering from 14 years of conflict and an Ebola epidemic.
