Soccer great Weah ahead in Liberia, run-off looms

MONROVIA - Liberia's presidential elections appeared headed for a second round as the latest tally on Sunday from last week's vote showed soccer great George Weah's lead was still too narrow to win outright.

With results in from 84 per cent of polling stations across the war-ravaged West African country, former FIFA World Player of the Year Weah led the field of 22 candidates with 30 per cent of the vote.

Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, a former finance minister and World Bank economist, was in second place with 19.6 per cent of the vote. She would become Africa's first elected female president if she won.

Any candidate must gain 50 per cent plus one vote to win outright in the first round, otherwise a run off will be held in early November between the two leaders.

National Elections Commission chief Frances Johnson-Morris, announcing the figures at a news conference, declined to comment on whether a second round was now inevitable. An official announcement is due by Tuesday.

LONG JOURNEYS

With Liberia's infrastructure in tatters following a brutal 14-year civil war which killed almost a quarter of a million people, many voters will face long journeys if they have to cast their ballots again.

"A second round is a bad thing. It would be complicated," said Claude Nimley, a security guard who travelled for three days to vote in Monrovia for Weah.

"I'm afraid many people won't make it a second time. I thought we would win outright!" said Nimley, who was waiting anxiously for the final election result.

Tuesday's presidential and parliamentary polls were the first in Liberia since the war ended in 2003 after former president and warlord Charles Taylor went into exile in Nigeria.

Taylor, whose army included child soldiers high on drugs wielding grenade launchers and Kalashnikovs, is wanted for war crimes by a UN-backed tribunal in Sierra Leone. He is regarded as the mastermind of several West African conflicts.

International election observers, diplomats and United Nations officials have praised the peaceful conduct of an election broadly judged so far to have been free and fair.

Africa's oldest independent republic, Liberia was founded by freed American slaves in 1847. It enjoyed relatively stability for well over a century becoming a centre for rubber and iron ore production.

- REUTERS