Liberia Election Run-Off: Ex-Footballer Or Vice-President?

On Tuesday morning, a day after Christmas- a Christian festive holiday- Liberians went out to practice their democratic right to choose a new president.

The context is between George Weah, a 51-year old ex-international footballer and 73-year old Joseph Boakai. Boakai has served as vice-president for the past 12 years under the incumbent president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.

Mr Weah won in the October 10 first round but failed to garner the 50 percent needed to win outright. Weah got 38.8 percent and Boakai 28.8 percent of the vote.

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, 79, Africa's first elected female president, will step down after two office terms. There has been transformational changes witnessed in her reign including tackling the deadly Ebola outbreak. She also helped rescue the country out of adverse civil wars previously witnessed.

Liberia was founded in the early 1800s by freed US slaves, and has not had smooth transfer of power in 73 years.

There’s optimism that the country will witness transfer of power from one president to another democratically.

Goodluck Jonathan, the former Nigerian president, who is monitoring the election as part of the National Democratic Institute Observer mission told the BBC he was certain the election would be free and fair.

"We're witnessing a situation where the sitting president will hand over to another democratically elected president. That will tell the whole world that Liberia is now a stable country democratically and that the remaining thing is to grow the economy."

The results of the run-off are expected in four days.

Ms. Sirleaf , the Nobel peace prize winner , who took office in 2006 has expressed her wish to hand over power to a democratically elected president after her leadership comes to an end on January 15 , 2018 .