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Bloomberg
Liberians vote on Tuesday to choose a new legislature as well as a president to replace Nobel Peace Prize laureate Ellen Johnson Sirleaf from among 20 candidates who include a retired soccer star, a former warlord and a wealthy chicken farmer.
Johnson Sirleaf, Africa’s first elected female president who’s governed the impoverished nation for 12 years, has thrown her support behind Vice President Joseph Boakai, 72. He’s the leader of the ruling Unity Party, which is widely credited with consolidating peace in a country left in ruins by a civil war that ended in 2003.
“I want a change in my country,†said voter Ma Hawa Swaray after casting her ballot in the capital, Monrovia. Better education, better roads and more jobs were among the things she hoped for, she said.
Polling stations opened at 8 am and are scheduled to close at 6 pm Some voters in Monrovia already began queuing at 5 am.
The vote in the West African nation, founded for freed American slaves almost 200 years ago, could see Liberia transfer power from one elected president to another for the first time in half a century. The economy expanded at an average rate of 7.5 percent a year between 2006 and 2013 until the nation was hit by the worst-ever Ebola epidemic that killed thousands of people. As many as 986 contestants are vying for 73 seats in the House of Representatives.