In Summary
- Liberian President George Weah conceded defeat to opposition leader Joseph Boakai
- Boakai supporters in the capital, Monrovia, danced and honked car horns in the rain after the near-final results were announced.
- George Weah, recognized, Friday evening, November 17,
Liberian President George Weah conceded defeat to opposition leader Joseph Boakai after a tight runoff election provisional results Friday showed.
Boakai led with a razor-thin margin, having received 50.9% of the v*9623.ote over Weah’s 49.1% with nearly all the votes counted, the country’s elections commission said.
The results were a dramatic reversal from the 2017 election when Weah, a 57 yeaar old former soccer star aeasily beat Boakai in the second round.
Boakai, 78, is a former vice president and a career politician. He emerged neck-and-neck with Weah in the first round of voting in October.
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But he failed to secure 50% of the vote needed for an outright victory, leading to Tuesday’s run-off election.
Weah concedes defeat
The outgoing president of Liberia,
his defeat during Tuesday’s presidential election against his opponent Joseph Boakai, while the country awaits the publication of the total results of the vote.
“Tonight, the CDC (Mr. Weah’s party) lost the elections but Liberia won. It’s time for elegance in defeat. »declared Mr. Weah, a former football glory elected in 2017, in a speech on public radio. “The results announced this evening, although not final, indicate that (Mr.) Boakai has a lead that we cannot catch up. I spoke to President-elect Joseph Boakai to congratulate him on his victory”Mr. Weah said
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We have a job to do, Boakai says
The winner, Mr. Boakai, will take the helm of this English-speaking country of around five million inhabitants, one of the poorest in the world, for a further six years.
From 2006 to 2018, Boakai was vice-president to Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Africa’s first elected female head of state. He has held a multitude of positions in government and the private sector.
Despite his age, he came out on top against an opponent 21 years his junior (aged 57) who remained popular with young people, but who had to defend a criticized record.
Mr. Boakai took his revenge against the man who had soundly defeated him in the second round in 2017 with over 61% of the vote, but whom his detractors criticize for not having kept his promises to fight poverty and corruption.
This time, the results were much tighter, and the two men went into the second round after coming neck-and-neck in the first, with just over 43% and a lead of 7,126 votes for Mr. Weah
