LIBERIA
Political Football
Former football (or soccer) star George Weah will face Vice President Joseph Boakai in a run-off election to select Libera’s president next month.
Weah won the first round with 38.4 percent of the vote, 10 points ahead of Boakai, Reuters cited the country’s election commission as saying Thursday.
The only African ever to win FIFA World Player of the Year and the Ballon d‘Or, Weah, 51, has served as a senator from the opposition Congress for Democratic Change since 2015. Though he’s wildly popular with young people and the poor, who feel they have not benefited from Liberia’s post-war recovery, his campaign has not offered much in the way of concrete policies.
Provided he wins the run-off, he’ll have a hard time matching his supporters’ aspirations, with the resource-based economy reeling from endemic corruption and low commodity prices.
On the plus side, whichever candidate wins the run-off will make history – marking Liberia’s first democratic transfer of power in
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