Liberians await results as vote counting continues
Vote counting is still underway in Liberia following the West African nation’s October 10 elections, in which incumbent President George Weah is seeking a second term.
By Saturday, 48 percent of the votes had been tallied, with Weah taking a slender lead ahead of former vice president Joseph Nyumah Boakai in what local media show to be a two-horse race.
Twenty presidential candidates, including Weah and Boakai, registered to run in the polls as they compete to lead the country of five million.
The elections are the fourth in post-war Liberia, but the second to be organized in the absence of the then United Nations Peacekeeping mission in Liberia.
The elections observer mission deployed to Liberia by the Economic Community of West Africa (ECOWAS) said Friday the elections were conducted smoothly and in a largely peaceful atmosphere.
The mission called on the National Elections Commission (NEC) to “diligently but urgently work to ensure the timely and transparent release of the results to diffuse any latent tension that may arise out of the long waits for results”.
The Professor Attahiru Jega-led mission also urged Liberians and all stakeholders to remain calm and await the official declaration of the results.
For a candidate to be declared winner of the election in the first round of voting, they must attain more than 50 percent of the votes cast. If no candidate hits the tally, a runoff vote is conducted with only the top two candidates from the first round. In the second round of voting, the candidate with more votes wins the election and is declared president-elect.
Liberia’s election laws give the NEC 15 days to announce the result of the elections after voting.
