Its official

The National Elections Commission (NEC) has announced that ruling Unity Party (UP) presidential candidate Vice President Joseph Nyuma Boakai and opposition Coalition for Democratic Change (CDC) candidate Sen. George Manneh Weah will contest the November 7, 2017 presidential run-off election, due to failure by either of 20 candidates to win a 50 percent plus one vote needed to be declared president.

Following the 10 October polls, Mr. Weah obtained 38 percent of the total votes cast, followed by Mr. Boakai who also obtained 28 percent of the votes. Liberian Constitution requires that a presidential candidate obtains 50 percent plus one of the total votes, failure of which the NEC declares run-off between the two leading candidates.

On Thursday, 19 October, NEC Chairman Cllr. Jerome George Korkoya declared political campaign opened for the November 7 presidential run-off. He urges the two candidates to observe the rules throughout the campaign period that runs from 19 October and ends on 5 November at 11:59pm.

For the October 10 elections, the NEC registered 26 political parties and qualified 20 presidential candidate and over 1000 representatives candidates that were battling for just 73 seats at the House of Representatives.

The NEC announced the final results for the October 10 presidential election and the final results for most of those that won representative seats on Thursday before declaring campaign opened for a run – off. Chairman Korkoya calls on both UP and CDC to be peaceful during the campaigning period, saying it will end November 5 at
midnight wile voting is Tuesday, November 7.

Chairman Korkoya announced that the CDC of Mr. Weah obtained the total votes of 596,037 (38.4 percent), while Boakai of UP obtained 446, 716 (28.8 percent) of the total votes cast.

Opposition Liberty Party (LP’s) defeated candidate Cllr. Charles Brumskine took third place with the total votes of 149,295 (9.6 percent), opposition Movement for Reconstruction and Democracy (MDR’s) Sen. Prince Y. Johnson obtained 127,666 (8.2) while opposition Alternative National Congress (ANC’s) Alexander Cummings had 112,067
(7. 2 percent).

Mr. Cummings was closely followed by Benoni Urey of the All Liberian Party (ALP) with the total votes of 24, 0246 (1. 6 percent) and Dr. Joseph Mills Jones of the Movement for Economic Empowerment (MOVEE) who obtained 12854 (0.8 percent).

According to the NEC boss, total votes of the 2.1 million dully registered voters during the 2017 representatives and presidential elections is 1066422 (75.19 percent) and the total invalid votes stand at 88,574.

By E. J. Nathaniel Daygbor–Edited by Winston W. Parley