Hours before the results were announced in an election that was supposed to solidify Liberia’s shaky peace, opposition leaderWinston Tubman said he would not accept the outcome of this week’s presidential runoff.
With nearly nine-tenths of precincts reporting, National Election Commission chair Elizabeth Nelson announced late Thursday thatSirleaf had received 513,320 votes out of 565,391 tallied. Only 52,071 ballots, or 9.2 percent, had been cast for Tubman, a former United Nations diplomat who, like Sirleaf, was educated at Harvard University.
Last week, Tubman called on his supporters to boycott Tuesday’s presidential runoff, and many polling stations closed early due to the dismal turnout. By early morning, many had no lines outside. By afternoon, poll workers were seen dozing, some laying their heads on tables next to near-empty ballot boxes.
Turnout hovered around 33 percent of registered voters, not even half of the 71 percent who turned out for the election’s first round.
“Our decision before the runoff is that we would not accept the results,” Tubman told The Associated Press by telephone from Monrovia, Liberia’s sea-facing capital of pockmarked buildings that still bear the scars of the horrific 14-year civil war that only ended in 2003.