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Weah supporters celebrate official presidential election lead

Liberia politics

George Weah won the first round of Liberia’s presidential election with 38.4 percent of the vote. Vice President Joseph Boakai came in second with 28.8 percent and will face Weah in a run-off next month, the electoral commission said on Thursday .

Supporters of his Congress for Democratic Change (CDC) party celebrated the Former soccer star ‘s lead over Boakai outside the party headquarters in the capital Monrovia.

The official final results showed Boakai, representing Johnson Sirleaf’s ruling Unity Party, had won 28.8 percent of the vote, putting the two frontrunners comfortably ahead of a large field of mostly minor candidates.

“King George”, as Weah’s supporters call him, is wildly popular among the youth and the disenfranchised, especially in the shanties of the rundown seaside capital Monrovia, but his campaign has so far been light on policy in a difficult economic climate of low prices for the commodities that are Liberia’s main exports