The victory tastes like revenge for Joseph Nyumah Boakai. That of a veteran of Liberian political life, who, at almost 79 years old, managed to win against the outgoing president and football legend, George Weah, twenty years his junior. His narrow election – he won 50.89% of the votes against 49.11% for his opponent according to the count in 99.58% of offices announced by the electoral commission (NEC) on Friday November 17 in the evening – puts an end to a formidable duel at the top that began six years ago.
George Weah did not wait for the final results to recognize his failure. “Tonight, the CDC [Mr Weah’s party] lost the election but Liberia won. It’s time for elegance in defeat,” declared the former football glory, in a speech on public radio. “The results announced this evening, although not final, indicate that [Mr] Boakai has a lead that we cannot make up. I spoke to President-elect Joseph Boakai to congratulate him on his victory,” he added.
In 2017, the presidential final had already pitted the two men against each other. But George Weah, driven by popular euphoria, won with 61.54% of the vote. This time, the Unity Party candidate disoriented his opponent in the first round, on October 10. While his detractors said he was too old and tired to run a campaign and win, he trailed George Weah by 7,361 votes out of more than 2 million votes.
Allied with a former warlord
This unexpected comeback, the “old man”, as the Liberians call him, has refined it through sometimes controversial alliances. For this election, undoubtedly the last given his age, the septuagenarian notably acquired the support of Prince Johnson, a former warlord who became kingmaker.
In 1990, as head of the Independent National Patriotic Front for Liberia (INPFL), an offshoot of Charles Taylor’s rebel forces, Prince Johnson appeared in a video sipping beer while his soldiers tortured former President Samuel Doe to death . It was this murder that plunged Liberia into civil war which left 250,000 dead between 1990 and 2003.
Prince Johnson was never tried for these facts and remains one of Liberia’s most influential political godfathers. After supporting George Weah in 2017, he sealed an alliance with Joseph Boakai through his protégé, Jeremiah Koung, a senator like him from Nimba county (north), an electorally strategic region.
