Liberia's George Weah concedes presidential election ahead of final result

The latest and nearly complete results showed Boakai leading with nearly 51 percent of the votes in Liberia, Africa's oldest republic founded by freed American slaves.

"The results announced tonight, though not final, indicate that... Boakai is in a lead that we cannot surpass," Weah said in a speech on national radio late on Friday.

He said his CDC party "has lost the election but Liberia has won," adding: "This is the time for graciousness in defeat".

The 78-year-old Boakai lost to Weah, 57, by a large margin in the second-round presidential vote in 2017.

With more than 99.5 percent of the polling stations reporting vote tallies after Tuesday's second-round vote, Boakai had garnered 50.89 percent of ballots cast, according to the election commission.

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livus, 6 months ago

From the article:

Boakai was 28,000 votes ahead of Weah, according to Friday's figures. The two finished neck-and-neck in the first round last month, with a national lead of just 7,126 votes for Weah.

The election of Weah -- the first African footballer to win both FIFA's World Player of the Year trophy and the Ballon d'Or -- had sparked high hopes of change in Liberia, which is still reeling from back-to-back civil wars and the 2014-2016 Ebola epidemic.

But critics have accused his government of corruption and him of failing to keep a promise to improve the lives of the poorest....

The elections were the first since the United Nations in 2018 ended its peacekeeping mission, created after more than 250,000 people died in the two civil wars in Liberia between 1989 and 2003.

International observers, including the European Union, have commended Liberia for holding a peaceful election.

Regional bloc ECOWAS, the Economic Community of West African States, said the poll was "largely" peaceful, but noted isolated incidents that led to "injuries and hospitalisations" in four provinces.

Clashes during the campaign left several dead before the first round and raised fears of post-election violence.

Around 2.4 million Liberians were eligible to vote on Tuesday and the turnout was roughly 66 percent, according to the electoral commission website.

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