LIBERIA
Ready to Score
Former soccer star George Weah looks set to become president as Liberians go to the polls Tuesday for the final round of the West African country’s presidential election.
Having already run the first round, Weah now faces the country’s vice president, Joseph Boakai, in the battle to replace incumbent President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who can’t run again because of term limits.
Though Weah lost to Sirleaf in his first two runs for the presidency, his promises to fight corruption and bring change have resonated more strongly with voters this round, Bloomberg quoted Ben Payton, head of Africa research at risk consultancy Verisk Maplecroft, as saying.
Promises of change notwithstanding, Weah has chosen a familiar name for his running mate: Jewel Taylor, the ex-wife of warlord-turned-president Charles Taylor – who remains popular despite his notorious use of child soldiers in the civil war he unleashed in 1989. The former strongman is now serving a 50-year prison term imposed by a special United Nations Court.
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