Electoral officials said on Thursday a run-off vote would likely be necessary to decide Liberia's presidential race, as early returns show former soccer star George Weah running neck-and-neck with the country's most popular female politician.
Liberian voters cast ballots on Tuesday for Liberia's first elected president since the end of a 14-year civil war that killed tens of thousands of people.
"The results, although too early, show that it might be difficult for one candidate to obtain the required 50 plus one [percent of the] vote to emerged the elected president," National Electoral Commission Chairman Frances Morris told reporters in the capital, Monrovia.
Neck-to-neck
"So far the leading candidates have been running neck-to-neck," Morris said.
In early returns from Tuesday's vote, Weah and Harvard-educated politician Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf led the field of 22.
But it was expected to be days before the count had progressed enough to indicate a trend. Results must be posted within 15 days, although a final tally is expected earlier.
A second round, if necessary, would be held early next month.
On Thursday, former Liberian rebel leader and presidential candidate Sekou Conneh said that he would accept elections results.
Rebuild the country
"Whatever the results, we will accept it and quickly get together to rebuilt the country," Conneh told reporters in comments addressing concerns that Liberia could be engulfed in violence again despite the gains that made it possible to hold a peaceful vote.
"I am one of the happiest people today," Conneh said.
"The very reason why we took arms was to put democracy back on track in our country and that is what is happening today," he added.
Conneh, a former political leader of the main rebel group that forced warlord-turned-president Charles Taylor from power in 2003, is not considered a serious contender.
Turnout among the 1.3 million registered voters was running at about 70 percent, said Frances Johnson Morris, who chairs the national electoral commission.
Historic vote
The UN special representative for Liberia, Alan Doss, commended "the patience, the determination and the friendliness displayed by all Liberians" during Tuesday's balloting, the West African country's first democratic vote since civil war ended two years ago.
"While we do not know which candidates will be chosen as the newly elected leaders of a democratically elected government of Liberia, we do know that today Liberians voted, cast their ballots for peace and for a new Liberia," Doss said on Wednesday.
Africa's oldest republic
Voters also cast ballots for 30 senators and 64 representatives -- a bicameral system modeled on that of the US.
Freed slaves from the United States were resettled here before they founded Africa's oldest republic in 1847.
Liberia was once among Africa's richest countries, with vast fields of gems and valuable groves of hardwood trees and rubber plants. It has known little but strife since a first coup in 1980.
Years of war ended in 2003 after Taylor stepped down in a rebel invasion of the capital.
A transitional government led by Gyude Bryant has ruled the country since.
Asian perspectives of the US have shifted from a country once perceived as a force of “moral legitimacy” to something akin to “a landlord seeking rent,” Singaporean Minister for Defence Ng Eng Hen (黃永宏) said on the sidelines of an international security meeting. Ng said in a round-table discussion at the Munich Security Conference in Germany that assumptions undertaken in the years after the end of World War II have fundamentally changed. One example is that from the time of former US president John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address more than 60 years ago, the image of the US was of a country
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
BLIND COST CUTTING: A DOGE push to lay off 2,000 energy department workers resulted in hundreds of staff at a nuclear security agency being fired — then ‘unfired’ US President Donald Trump’s administration has halted the firings of hundreds of federal employees who were tasked with working on the nation’s nuclear weapons programs, in an about-face that has left workers confused and experts cautioning that the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE’s) blind cost cutting would put communities at risk. Three US officials who spoke to The Associated Press said up to 350 employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) were abruptly laid off late on Thursday, with some losing access to e-mail before they’d learned they were fired, only to try to enter their offices on Friday morning
CONFIDENT ON DEAL: ‘Ukraine wants a seat at the table, but wouldn’t the people of Ukraine have a say? It’s been a long time since an election, the US president said US President Donald Trump on Tuesday criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and added that he was more confident of a deal to end the war after US-Russia talks. Trump increased pressure on Zelenskiy to hold elections and chided him for complaining about being frozen out of talks in Saudi Arabia. The US president also suggested that he could meet Russian President Vladimir Putin before the end of the month as Washington overhauls its stance toward Russia. “I’m very disappointed, I hear that they’re upset about not having a seat,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida when asked about the Ukrainian
RSS