Liberia\u2019s President, George Weah, has conceded defeat to opposition candidate Joseph Boakai after a tight run-off election. <\/p>\n
Weah, a former soccer star, called Boakai after the country\u2019s National Elections Commission (NEC) released provisional results on Friday. <\/p>\n
With nearly all ballots counted, Boakai, a 78-year-old former vice president of Liberia, won 51% of the votes, the country\u2019s electoral commission said. <\/p>\n
In an address to the nation, Weah said: \u201cThe results announced tonight, though not final, indicate that Ambassador Joseph N. Boakai is in a lead that we cannot surpass. Therefore, a few minutes ago, I spoke with President-elect Joseph N. Boakai to congratulate him on his victory. <\/p>\n
\u201cTonight, as we acknowledge the results, let us also recognize that the true winners of these elections are the people of Liberia,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n
President Weah was voted into office in 2018 and will step down in January. <\/p>\n
A run-off was triggered when Weah, 57, secured a victory in an earlier October poll with a margin of just 7,000 votes over his political rival, Boakai. However, he fell short of the required 50% threshold necessary to clinch an outright victory. <\/p>\n
Weah was seeking reelection for a second six-year term after a tumultuous first tenure tainted by corruption scandals and allegations of mismanagement. <\/p>\n
He has been praised for immediately conceding ensuring, a peaceful transfer of power \u2013 a significant milestone in Liberia\u2019s fragile democracy, which has seen civil war and previous leaders killed in office. <\/p>\n
There have also been a spate of coups in West and Central Africa in recent years. <\/p>\n
Nigeria\u2019s President Bola Tinubu was among the first to congratulate the new President-elect while also commending Weah\u2019s \u201csterling example, undiluted patriotism, and statesmanship. He has defied the stereotype that peaceful transitions of power are untenable in West Africa,\u201d a statement from Nigeria\u2019s presidency said. <\/p>\n\n
Liberia\u2019s President, George Weah, has conceded defeat to opposition candidate Joseph Boakai after a tight run-off election. Weah, a former soccer star, called Boakai after the country\u2019s National Elections Commission (NEC) released provisional results on Friday. With nearly all ballots counted, Boakai, a 78-year-old former vice president of Liberia, won 51% of the votes, the <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":11794,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-11793","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11793"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11793\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}