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Liberia: Johnson-Sirleaf asks voters not boycott poll
Liberia President., Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf. AP Photo/FRANCOIS MORI
Liberia’s president urged voters to go to the polls this week and to ignore a boycott by the opposition.
Campaigning for the November 8 presidential runoff ends at midnight Sunday, and incumbent President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (pictured), is likely to remain unopposed. Her supporters drove around Monrovia Sunday calling for support over amplifiers mounted on pickups.
Liberia’s leading opposition candidate Winston Tubman had said he was pulling out of the presidential runoff election. He told The Associated Press Friday that he was boycotting the runoff because he was not convinced the process would be fair.
President Sirleaf accused Tubman of violating the constitution as she spoke to her Unity Party supporters in an address carried lived on radio and television Saturday.
“On Nov. 8, I urge you to go out and cast your vote for your favorite candidates,” she said. “Do not succumb to fear and intimidation. Do not allow any politician to hold our country hostage.”
“If this is how they run their party, think of how they would run this country,” she said of Tubman and his Congress for Democratic Change party.
This is not the first time that Tubman’s party has threatened a boycott. When it became clear in October that incumbent President Sirleaf was leading the first round of voting with over 45 percent, the Congress for Democratic Change joined seven other opposition parties in signing a statement saying they were pulling out of the presidential poll.
