Former
world footballer of the year, George Weah might realize his dreams of
becoming the President of Liberia come this Christmas.
When News Breaks Out, We Break In. (The 2014 Bloggies Finalist)
George Weah
Liberia will hold a delayed presidential run-off vote on December
26 with former soccer star George Weah facing Vice-President Joseph
Boakai.
Liberian presidential poll was held up for several weeks by a court
challenge by the candidate who came third in round one in October,
which Weah won with 39 percent of the vote.
Weah, a national hero in Liberia, became the first non-European to
win European soccer’s player of the year award in 1995, the same year he
picked up the African and world player of the year awards.
“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. Many of them feel they
have not benefited from Liberia’s post-war recovery, a sentiment that
has counted against Boakai.
Weah, 51, has served as a senator from the opposition Congress for
Democratic Change since 2015, after returning home from an international
soccer career to immerse himself in politics. As a political novice in
2005, he lost to Johnson Sirleaf in a presidential election.
Liberians are eager for change after Nobel Peace Prize-winning
Sirleaf’s 12-year rule, which sealed a lasting peace in a country that
for decades had only known war, but which has failed to tackle
corruption or much improve a lot of the poorest.
-Reuters
When News Breaks Out, We Break In. (The 2014 Bloggies Finalist)
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