Liberia’s George Weah concedes defeat after tight vote

President George Weah has conceded defeat to his opponent with nearly all the votes counted in a tight general election in Liberia.

Former vice-president Joseph Boakai scored a narrow victory to see off the incumbent in the west African country’s run-off vote.

A presidential spokesperson confirmed the result early on Saturday. Isaac Solo Kegbeh said “yes, that is correct”, when asked if media reports of a call from Weah to the opposition candidate Boakai were accurate.

Boakai secured 50.89 per cent of the vote to Weah’s 49.11 per cent, with 99.58 per cent of the results counted, according to data from the National Elections Commission, Liberia’s electoral agency. Final results are expected in the next few days.

“Weah called Boakai via telephone following the announcement of provisional results by the National Elections Commission on Friday,” a statement from the president’s office said later.

The second-round vote was required after neither man secured more than 50 per cent in the October election, a similar outcome to six years ago when Weah decisively beat Boakai at the second attempt.

“Boakai’s first task will be to reconcile the country after a contested election,” Amara M Konneh, a campaign spokesman and former finance minister, told the FT. “This is very important to let the country know that the politics of elections is over and we need to come together as one country to develop it.”

The election was a referendum on Weah’s stewardship of the country of more than 5mn people since he assumed office at the start of 2018. However, after promising to fix the country’s political system his government was dogged by allegations of corruption and economic mismanagement that frustrated citizens who had placed faith in the former football star.

Three senior government officials, including chief of staff long-time Weah ally Nathaniel McGill, were sanctioned by the US Treasury department for allegedly engaging in public corruption. Weah denied having any knowledge of the affair and suspended all three after the sanctions were imposed.

Weah was seen as an absentee president who spent too much time abroad instead of addressing pressing issues at home. At one point last year, the president was away for almost 50 days on a trip that included stops in Qatar to watch his son Timothy play for the US men’s national team during the World Cup as well as summits in Morocco and Washington.

Liberia’s economy is small with an estimated GDP of about $4bn and is mostly dependent on agricultural exports. The country has struggled to recover from ruinous civil wars in the 1990s and early 2000s and the 2013-16 Ebola epidemic, with many Liberians still lacking access to services such as health and education.

Boakai’s victory marks a stunning comeback for a man nicknamed “Sleepy Joe” for dozing off at public events during his time as vice-president from 2006 to 2018.

The 78-year-old looked set for retirement after his loss to Weah in 2017. However, he seized on growing anti-Weah sentiment to portray the incumbent as being incapable of steering the country in the right direction. Boakai ran on a platform of investing in the economy through agriculture programmes and infrastructure development.

“He is going to focus on agriculture, road infrastructure and electricity generation. And he’s also going to make health and education a priority,” Konneh said.