Post by Onyango Oloo on Oct 14, 2005 0:40:24 GMT 3
By Nick Tattersall- Reuters
"The masses have been down for many years - it is time for the masses to go up"-George Weah
MONROVIA (Reuters) - Soccer star George Weah took an early lead on Thursday as results trickled in from Liberia's first post-war elections, but he seemed likely to face a run-off with former Finance Minister Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf.
With results still coming in slowly from Tuesday's presidential and parliamentary elections, the millionaire former AC Milan striker and his main rival, Harvard-trained economist Johnson-Sirleaf, remained the frontrunners.
Electoral officials and observers said it looked increasingly likely that the presidential poll, the first since the end of a brutal 14-year civil war in Liberia, would have to go to a second round next month.
"It seems obvious to me personally that there will be a run-off now tentatively scheduled for November 8," former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, one of 400 international election observers, told reporters.
National Elections Commission chief Frances Johnson-Morris made the same prediction as she cautioned that final election results could take up to a week.
But excitement remained high on the streets of the crumbling capital Monrovia. Crowds gathered around radio sets, sending up a cheer with each new report of fresh gains by Weah or other favourite candidates.
With about 10 percent of votes tallied so far, 39-year-old Weah lead the field of 22 presidential hopefuls with 26.6 percent of the vote, ahead of Johnson-Sirleaf with 16.2 percent.
If no candidate gains more than 50 percent, a run-off will be held no more than two weeks after official confirmation of the first round's results.
If 66-year-old grandmother Johnson-Sirleaf wins, she would become Africa's first elected female president.
Liberians are desperate for the polls to return the West African country to stability two years after the end of the war, which killed a quarter of a million people and left infrastructure in ruins.
"KING GEORGE" VS "IRON LADY"
While Weah, dubbed "King George" by supporters, has amassed a huge popular following because of his star status, Johnson-Sirleaf is known as the Iron Lady because of her feisty style and her solid financial and government experience.
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 over the last years.
Weah spent the day on Thursday playing basketball with friends at a brand new court built at the back of his Monrovia house, with music blaring and surrounded by young female admirers, witnesses said.
In the Sinkor suburb of the city, crowds gathered around a wooden shack called the Daily Talk, its front wall a blackboard carrying the latest election results.
"I decided to bring information down to the common level," said Alfred Sirleaf, who calls himself the managing editor and occasionally emerges from his "newsroom" inside to write up results he has heard on U.N. radio.
Sirleaf first built the shack during the rule of exiled warlord-turned-president Charles Taylor but government soldiers smashed it to pieces with their jeeps after he criticised the regime on his blackboard.
"I re-did it a week or so before the election. The reporting I do here is free, everyone wants to know the results," he said, adding the local community paid to help him rebuild the shack.
Both Weah and Johnson-Sirleaf have said they would work together whoever wins the presidency and have pledged to make reconstruction their priority.
Taylor, who triggered the civil war in 1989 and is seen as the mastermind of several West African conflicts, has been repeatedly accused by a U.N. war crimes prosecutor of supporting several candidates in the election.
One of the presidential hopefuls represents Taylor's National Patriotic Party.
© Reuters 2005. All Rights Reserved.
"The masses have been down for many years - it is time for the masses to go up"-George Weah
MONROVIA (Reuters) - Soccer star George Weah took an early lead on Thursday as results trickled in from Liberia's first post-war elections, but he seemed likely to face a run-off with former Finance Minister Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf.
With results still coming in slowly from Tuesday's presidential and parliamentary elections, the millionaire former AC Milan striker and his main rival, Harvard-trained economist Johnson-Sirleaf, remained the frontrunners.
Electoral officials and observers said it looked increasingly likely that the presidential poll, the first since the end of a brutal 14-year civil war in Liberia, would have to go to a second round next month.
"It seems obvious to me personally that there will be a run-off now tentatively scheduled for November 8," former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, one of 400 international election observers, told reporters.
National Elections Commission chief Frances Johnson-Morris made the same prediction as she cautioned that final election results could take up to a week.
But excitement remained high on the streets of the crumbling capital Monrovia. Crowds gathered around radio sets, sending up a cheer with each new report of fresh gains by Weah or other favourite candidates.
With about 10 percent of votes tallied so far, 39-year-old Weah lead the field of 22 presidential hopefuls with 26.6 percent of the vote, ahead of Johnson-Sirleaf with 16.2 percent.
If no candidate gains more than 50 percent, a run-off will be held no more than two weeks after official confirmation of the first round's results.
If 66-year-old grandmother Johnson-Sirleaf wins, she would become Africa's first elected female president.
Liberians are desperate for the polls to return the West African country to stability two years after the end of the war, which killed a quarter of a million people and left infrastructure in ruins.
"KING GEORGE" VS "IRON LADY"
While Weah, dubbed "King George" by supporters, has amassed a huge popular following because of his star status, Johnson-Sirleaf is known as the Iron Lady because of her feisty style and her solid financial and government experience.
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 over the last years.
Weah spent the day on Thursday playing basketball with friends at a brand new court built at the back of his Monrovia house, with music blaring and surrounded by young female admirers, witnesses said.
In the Sinkor suburb of the city, crowds gathered around a wooden shack called the Daily Talk, its front wall a blackboard carrying the latest election results.
"I decided to bring information down to the common level," said Alfred Sirleaf, who calls himself the managing editor and occasionally emerges from his "newsroom" inside to write up results he has heard on U.N. radio.
Sirleaf first built the shack during the rule of exiled warlord-turned-president Charles Taylor but government soldiers smashed it to pieces with their jeeps after he criticised the regime on his blackboard.
"I re-did it a week or so before the election. The reporting I do here is free, everyone wants to know the results," he said, adding the local community paid to help him rebuild the shack.
Both Weah and Johnson-Sirleaf have said they would work together whoever wins the presidency and have pledged to make reconstruction their priority.
Taylor, who triggered the civil war in 1989 and is seen as the mastermind of several West African conflicts, has been repeatedly accused by a U.N. war crimes prosecutor of supporting several candidates in the election.
One of the presidential hopefuls represents Taylor's National Patriotic Party.
© Reuters 2005. All Rights Reserved.