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Early results suggest run-off in Liberia election

Posted on: Thursday, 13 October 2005, 07:31 CDT

By Nick Tattersall

MONROVIA (Reuters) - Early results from Liberia's first post-war elections showed on Thursday that soccer star George Weah and former Finance Minister Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf may face a second-round run-off.

Two days after Tuesday's landmark presidential and parliamentary polls, results trickled in agonizingly slowly from a vote intended to draw a line under the West African country's brutal 14-year civil war.

As each piecemeal result was announced by local radio, residents in the crumbling capital Monrovia sent up loud cheers, women danced on the streets and taxis honked their horns.

With official results in from only 278 of the 3,070 polling stations, former AC Milan striker Weah lead the field of 22 presidential hopefuls with 23.7 percent of the vote, ahead of Harvard-trained economist Johnson-Sirleaf with 14.9 percent.

"With the current trend, it is likely that there will be a second round," National Elections Commission chief Frances Johnson-Morris told reporters.

Electoral officials have said a final result could take between three and seven days. If no candidate gains more than 50 percent, a run-off will be held no more than two weeks later.

If 66-year-old grandmother Johnson-Sirleaf wins, she would become Africa's first elected female president.

"I am sure there will be a second round. The race is just not clear. We keep seeing different people rising," said Simeon Tyler, a 34-year-old security guard. "It will be very difficult for anyone to get over 50 percent."

Some newspapers reported Johnson-Sirleaf in the lead, others put Weah ahead and still others said the contest would go to a second round.

Electoral chief Johnson-Morris cautioned voters against proclaiming a victory too soon.

"People ... are thinking a person has won, but we still have a long way to go," she said. "We know the public are anxious ... I can understand, most of our people are illiterate."

Liberians hope the polls will cement stability two years after a war that killed a quarter of a million people, uprooted almost a third of the population and left the country's infrastructure in ruins.

TAYLOR'S SHADOW

Weah, 39, is expected to do well in Monrovia, where he grew up and his well-funded campaign has drawn huge crowds. His support in the rest of the country is untested as he has no established party machine behind him.

Some question whether the soccer star has the qualifications and political experience to be president. His supporters retort that Harvard-trained professionals such as Johnson-Sirleaf have done little to help ordinary Liberians in the past two decades.

Both have said they would work together whoever wins and have pledged to make reconstruction their priority, restoring running water and mains electricity.

The shadow of exiled former President Charles Taylor, who triggered the civil war in 1989 and is seen as the mastermind of several West African conflicts, hangs over the polls.

A prosecutor for a U.N.-backed court in Sierra Leone, where Taylor is wanted for war crimes, said last week he had evidence the former warlord was supporting candidates.

One of the presidential hopefuls represents Taylor's National Patriotic Party.

Source: REUTERS

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