Liberia: Sirleaf seen winning Liberia run-off vote | Reuters

Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf is poised to win reelection in a run-off on Tuesday, though her rival has vowed to reject the results after pulling out of the race over allegations of fraud. The vote was meant to gauge the West African state’s progress since a devastating civil war ended in 2003 and pave the way for new investment, but fears are rising it could instead open the door to open-ended political turmoil.

“I will go pray tonight that there will be peace for Liberia,” said Akisame Johnson, a 50-year-old resident of the crumbling seaside capital Monrovia. “Ma Ellen’s people come up and down here to say of course election will take place Tuesday, but Tubman’s people come and say no. The children confused. We don’t know what will happen,” he said in the local pidgin dialect.

Liberia: Liberian election commission chief James Fromayan resigns | Al Jazeera English

Liberia’s election commission chief has resigned after accusations of bias in the recent presidential elections and just days before a planned presidential runoff. “I chose to step down for the sake of Liberia and so that (challenger Winston Tubman’s) CDC [Congress for Democratic Change] would not have an excuse not to participate in the run-off,” James Fromayan told the Reuters news agency on Sunday.

Tubman last week threatened to withdraw from the November 8 run-off, the country’s second post-war vote, unless there was a change of leadership at the election commission. Fromayan, who has denied any wrong-doing, said he would be replaced by Elizabeth Nelson, his deputy, but he said he did not know it would be a permanent arrangement. There was no immediate reaction from Tubman’s camp.

Liberia: Vote Valid Despite Opposition Pull-Out, Election Commission Says | VoA News

Liberia’s electoral commission says the credibility of last week’s presidential vote is not undermined by eight opposition parties refusing to recognize its results. Opponents of President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf are calling for peaceful protest Sunday after pulling out of a process that they say is being rigged to assure the president’s re-election.

Eight opposition parties say vote totals announced by Liberia’s National Electoral Commission are “null and void” because officials are manipulating results to favor Sirleaf. They say they will not accept the results if the vote count continues now that they have withdrawn their party agents from the electoral commission.

Liberia: Ex-warlord becomes kingmaker in Liberia ballot | Times Union

A rebel leader who videotaped himself drinking Budweiser as his men cut off the ears of the nation’s former president has finished third in this week’s presidential election, according to partial results issued Thursday, thrusting the notorious ex-warlord into the role of kingmaker.

Incumbent Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, a Nobel Peace laureate who is the continent’s only female president, may have finished first with 41.7 percent of the vote, according to the partial tally issued by the electoral commission that represents ballots from around one-sixth of polling stations. But with 24.5 percent voting for her challenger, she needs No. 3 Prince Johnson’s endorsement to win the upcoming runoff.

Despite being named one of the main actors in Liberia’s horrific civil war, Johnson remains popular in his home county, which elected him senator and he is in third place with 12.5 percent of the vote. “I will be happy to be the kingmaker,” Johnson told The Associated Press on Thursday. “And where we will put our support will depend on what our supporters say. … We will not put our votes into someone’s hands blindly.”