Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf is poised to become Africa's first elected female president after early results indicated that the banker and economist has a commanding lead over George Weah, the former footballer, in Liberia's first elections since emerging from civil war.
Liberia's National Elections Commission said today that Ms Johnson-Sirleaf, a Harvard-trained economist and former finance minister, had 57.9 per cent of the vote after 80 per cent of the ballots collected in Tuesday's election had been counted. Mr Weah had 42.1 per cent.
The run-off vote between Ms Johnson-Sirleaf, 66, and Mr Weah, 39, marks the culmination of &to=http://english.pravda.ru/main/2002/12/16/40883.html' target=_blank>Liberia's first free elections since the end of the country's 14-year civil war in 2003.
In the first round of voting, Mr Weah, known to his supporters as "King George" won 28 per cent of the vote to Ms Johnson-Sirleaf's 20 per cent, reports Times Online.
"It's clear that the Liberian people have expressed confidence in me," Johnson-Sirleaf told The Associated Press. "They have elected me to lead the team that will bring this reform to the country and that will deliver development.
"We're going to have a government of inclusion. We're going to reach out to the people."
There was no immediate word from Weah's camp on whether he was conceding defeat in the vote Liberia's first since the end of a 1989-2003 civil war and subsequent formation of a transitional government.
Earlier, officials called for calm amid Weah's accusations that poll workers stuffed ballot boxes in Johnson-Sirleaf's favor, charges her campaign denied, according to ABC News.
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