A newspaper seller (left) plies his wares, covered in election headlines, outside the National Elections Commission building in Monrovia, yesterday. United Nations helicopters and jeeps collected ballot boxes from across Liberia as local radio reported soccer star George Weah and a Harvard-trained economist emerging as early frontrunners in the country's first post-war elections. - REUTERS
MONROVIA, Liberia (AP):
LIBERIANS WERE praised for a peaceful vote yesterday as counting got under way to determine who will be president and, many hope, lead this West African nation out of decades of coups, despotic rule and war.
The U.N. special representative for Liberia, Alan Doss, commended "the patience, the determination and the friendliness displayed by all Liberians" during Tuesday's balloting, the West African country's first democratic vote since civil war ended two years ago.
NEW LIBERIA
"While we do not know which candidates will be chosen as the newly elected leaders of a democratically elected government of Liberia, we do know that today Liberians voted, cast their ballots for peace and for a new Liberia."
Vying for the country's top job Tuesday were 22 candidates - including former international soccer phenomenon George Weah, Harvard-educated politician Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf and two ex-rebel leaders.
EARLY COUNT
Early returns Wednesday showed Johnson-Sirleaf winning 25 per cent of 12,835 votes officially tallied in seven of 18 precincts nationwide, with Weah netting 21 per cent. But that count excluded the capital, Monrovia, and represents only a sliver of the 1.3 million voters registered for the election.
Voter participation was running at about 70 per cent, said Frances Johnson Morris, who chairs the national electoral commission.
A candidate must gain over 50 percent of the ballots cast on Tuesday to avert a runoff with the runner-up. Results must be posted within 15 days, although a final tally is expected earlier. A second round, if necessary, would be held in early November.
Voters also cast ballots for 30 senators and 64 representatives -- a bicameral system modeled on that of the United States. Freed slaves from the United States were resettled here before they founded Africa's oldest republic in 1847.
Morris told reporters "indicative results" would be released in three to seven days. She said the commission had received no complaints so far.
Morris said helicopters were being used to retrieve ballots from remote areas to counting centers.
Liberia was once among Africa's richest countries, with vast fields of gems and valuable groves of hardwood trees and rubber plants. It has known little but strife since a first coup in 1980. Years of war ended in 2003 after warlord-turned-president Charles Taylor stepped down in a rebel invasion of the capital. A transitional government led by Gyude Bryant has ruled the country since.
On Wednesday, Bryant congratulated his countrymen on a peaceful vote.
Electoral commission chief Morris said Bryant, who was not among the candidates, could not cast a ballot because he forgot to take his voter card with him from Monrovia when he went to the southern town of Cavalla to vote.
Tuesday, Liberians waited in snaking voter queues at churches, schools and empty, long-shuttered bank buildings. Many voters sat on benches they brought with them in anticipation of a long wait or huddled under umbrellas to shelter from alternating periods of rain and pounding tropical sunshine.
