Observers from the European Union (EU), the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the African Union (AU) congratulated Liberia on Thursday, October 12, for the peaceful holding of his presidential and parliamentary elections on Tuesday.
“The election day was peaceful and well run by the National Electoral Commission [NEC] and its staff across the country,” said Andreas Schieder, head of the European observation mission. ECOWAS and the AU, for their part, congratulated the government and the NEC for the organization of these peaceful elections, marked by enthusiasm and a high participation rate.
This election is the first organized without the presence of the United Nations mission in Liberia, created in 2003 to guarantee peace after the civil wars which left more than 250,000 dead between 1989 and 2003 and whose memory remains vivid. The presidential election pits 20 candidates against each other, including the outgoing head of state, George Weah, a former football star, and his main opponent, Joseph Boakai, former vice-president from 2006 to 2018.
While the EU mission noted that the campaign had been largely peaceful and that the media had been able to freely exercise their information mission, it also pointed out the failures in the financing of the campaign. “The government’s use of state platforms and resources constituted an advantage for those in power,” noted Andreas Schieder.
“While the voting process was generally considered well organized and smooth, the counting phase was assessed less positively by EU observers due to the omission or poor implementation of several stages “important procedural steps to ensure the integrity of the count,” the EU observers also said in their preliminary report.
The NEC began reporting the first results on Wednesday. The final results must be made public a maximum of fifteen days after the elections. A second round between the two leading candidates is planned for early November, unless one candidate obtains an absolute majority in the first.