George Weah, former soccer star, poised to win Liberian presidency
MONROVIA, Liberia -- Former international soccer star George Weah is poised to win Liberia's presidency, according to provisional results released Thursday by the National Elections Commission. With 98.1 percent of the votes counted in Tuesday's runoff election, Weah had received 61.5 percent of ballots and Vice President Joseph Boakai had received 38.5 percent.
Final results were expected Friday.
The 51-year-old Weah, a FIFA World Player of the Year who entered politics after his 2002 retirement, also led the first round of voting in October but didn't receive enough votes to win outright over the 73-year-old Boakai, who has been vice president for 12 years.
They have been vying to replace Africa's first female president, Nobel Peace Prize winner Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who has served two terms.
Neither Weah nor Boakai made any public comment after the provisional results were released.
Weah is currently a senator in Liberia's parliament, according to BBC News. His running mate, Jewel Taylor, is the former wife of ex-President Charles Taylor, who is serving a 50-year prison sentence in the U.K. for war crimes related to the conflict in Sierra Leone.
This is the first time in more than 70 years the West African nation founded by freed American slaves is seeing one democratically elected government hand power to another.
Weah's party members were already celebrating, though results from four of Liberia's 15 countries were yet to be released.
Armed guards surrounded the NEC headquarters in advance of the announcement of the results. The commission said 56 percent of the country's 2.2 million registered voters cast ballots in the runoff vote.