Nothing can stop my victory, says George Weah’s opponent

Vice-President Joseph Boakai of Liberia says nothing can stop his victory in the presidential election.

George Weah, retired footballer, is Boakai’s main opponent in the election. As of Saturday, Boakai of the ruling Unity Party was still the first runner-up with 334,162 votes representing 29.6 percent of the votes so far processed.

Weah of the Coalition for Democratic Change (CDC) was leading with 441,839 or 39.2 percent.

A candidate needs more than 50 percent of the votes for outright victory. If no one achieves that, a second round will be held in November.

But speaking in Monrovia, capital of the country, during the weekend, Boakai expressed optimism of winning the election in the first round.

“As far as I’m concerned, I know the Unity Party is going to win the elections; nothing is going to stop it,” he said.

“I went into the election to win, and I don’t settle for second round, I went to the polls for first round.”

Twenty candidates contested in the election to succeed outgoing President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, who is stepping down after serving out her two terms.

The Chairman of the National Elections Commission (NEC), Jerome Kokorya, had released more provisional results on Saturday, bringing the total votes so far processed to 1.12 million.

Korkoya said votes from 3,991 polling units had been processed as of Saturday out of a total of 5,390 units across the country.

A total of 2.1 million voters registered for the 2017 general election.

Meanwhile, the opposition figure and presidential candidate of Liberty Party (LP), Charles Brumskine, had alleged fraud in the elections in spite the international observers adjudging it free and fair.

Brumskine, who stood at a third position with 9.3 per cent, alleged the polls were marred by gross irregularities and fraud, calling for re-run.