Liberia election: George Weah versus Joseph Boakai

Liberians will head to the polls on Tuesday to elect a contemporary president in a contested flee-off election.

The delayed vote pits George Weah, a fifty one-year-customary ex-international soccer smartly-known person and Liberian senator, against seventy three-year-customary Joseph Boakai, who has served because the vp underneath President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf for the past 12 years.

Polls launch at 08:00 GMT and shut at 18:00 GMT. 

Both Weah, the candidate for the Congress for Democratic Commerce (CDC), and Boakai, of the Solidarity Celebration, have promised to revive Liberia’s struggling economy and kick-launch infrastructure initiatives.

The 2 ranked first and second respectively in the October 10 first round – Weah won 38.eight percent and Boakai 28.eight percent – however neither secured the 50 percent essentially the significant to capture outright.

On the starting place scheduled for November 7, the flee-off used to be delayed after the birthday celebration of a 0.33 candidate filed a favorable criticism alleging voter fraud and irregularities.

Liberia’s Supreme Court in a roundabout procedure cleared the come for the vote to happen on Tuesday.

Advertising and marketing and marketing campaign pledges

Weah has promised to lower poverty stages by organising jobs in both infrastructure and agriculture.

He has said a CDC government would be conscious of paying examination costs and the command of a sector-wide assessment to bolster Liberia’s primitive training machine.

He is the command of his recognition as a sports icon to garner votes with Liberian childhood, a immense demographic. Roughly 60 percent of Liberia’s inhabitants is underneath 30.

Jewel Taylor-Howard, a senior senator and ex-accomplice of bizarre President Charles Taylor who is serving a 50-year sentence for war crimes, is working as Weah’s working mate.

Weah is an ex-international soccer smartly-known person and Liberian senator [File: Thierry Gouegnon/Reuters]

The platform of Boakai’s Solidarity Celebration hinges on prudent economic choices and infrastructure.

Avenue increase is his flagship field.

« Whenever you have roads, all plenty of issues can happen, » Boakai has said, while also promising to create 50,000 jobs in his first a hundred and fifty days in office.

If the flee-off goes smoothly and outcomes are accredited by both events, it goes to be the first aloof transition of energy in Liberia in additional than 70 years.

Boakai also hopes to invent from the honour earned by Sirleaf.

In 2011, Sirleaf used to be a joint recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize for her « non-violent battle for the safety of ladies folks and for ladies folks’s rights to beefy participation in peace-constructing work » in the wake of Liberia’s two bloody civil wars, which spanned 14 years sooner than ending in 2003.

She has made it decided that she desires to quit energy to a democratically elected president when her time in office involves an cease on January 15, 2018.

Boakai has served because the vp for the past 12 years [Thierry Gouegnon/Reuters]