Weah and Boakai engage in tight race for the presidency of Liberia as voting gets underway

On Wednesday, following a presidential run-off between former vice president Joseph Boakai and football hero George Weah, in which the challenger had a slim early lead, vote counting began in Liberia.

More than 2.4 million voters cast ballots on Tuesday, calmly choosing between 78-year-old Boakai and incumbent Weah, 57, who is running for a second term.

After the two candidates were nearly neck and neck in the first round of voting last month, observers predict a close outcome.

Davidetta Browne Lansanah, the chairwoman of the electoral commission, informed reporters that Boakai had won with 50.7 percent of the votes after results from 1,315 of the 5,890 polling places nationwide had been tallied.

She did not say what percentage of voters overall these voting places represented. They cast little more than 386,000 votes.

Held last month, Weah narrowly defeated his former opponent by 7,126 votes nationwide in the first round of voting.

However, he handily defeated Boakai in the second round of the 2017 presidential contest, garnering almost 61 percent of the vote.

The electoral commission may release the results earlier than the fifteen days after the elections close.

The count started shortly after the polls closed on Tuesday night, and the electoral body is expected to provide updates on its progress every day.

The elections are the first since the UN’s peacekeeping deployment was terminated in 2018, following two civil wars in Liberia that claimed over 250,000 lives between 1989 and 2003.

READ ALSO: President Weah wins the first round of voting in Liberia

There were serious concerns about the polls being tainted by violence, irregularities in the voting process, and the acceptance of the results.

Only a few small incidents have been recorded thus far, and the voting was seen by both domestic and foreign observers.

According to Oscar Bloh, the chairman of the civil society organisation Election Coordinating Committee, “from our observation, the process went well,” AFP was told.

“Overall the process was peaceful, there was no major incident that we observed, though we didn’t cover all the polling centres.”

Regarding voter turnout, he declined to say.

“Isolated incidents” were recorded by the head of the electoral commission during the vote gathering and counting procedure, one of which was an assault on an election supervisor who sustained injuries.

“The generally peaceful conduct of the elections so far” was praised by the Economic Community of West African States, which dispatched observers.

But Ecowas expressed “deep concern over provocative statements and alleged planned conferences by political actors to prematurely declare victory” in its statement.

Nevertheless, the West African bloc did not say to whom it was addressing itself.

It cautioned “individuals or groups that they would be held solely accountable for any acts that may lead to violence and undermine the hard-earned peace and stability of Liberia” .

As a member of Ecowas, Liberia is able to apply penalties.

Violence following the election was feared after clashes throughout the campaign left multiple people dead.

The spread of false information was another characteristic of the campaign.

Boakai is an old hand who has worked in both the public and private sectors, while Weah is well-liked by youth but needs to defend his record in office. Weah is the only African to win football’s most coveted individual award, the Ballon d’Or.