A football superstar, a former warlord and a soft drinks millionaire have thrown their hats into the ring for the post of Liberian president as Africa's first elected female leader prepares to step down.
A dizzying array of candidates have lined up for the October poll to replace Nobel Peace Prize winner Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. She leaves behind no obvious successor after serving an unbroken decade in the job, a constitutional maximum of two terms.
Her replacement will have to prove they can keep the peace in a country whose lengthy civil war ended in 2003.
Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf holds up an identification plaque signed by the World Trade Organization (WTO) director-general in Nairobi on December 16, 2015, following Liberia's accession to the WTO at the tenth ministerial conference. /VCG Photo
"It is still too early to identify a frontrunner," Raymond Gilpin and Dorina Bekoe of the Washington-based Africa Center for Strategic Studies said in a joint email.
"Successful candidates will have to prove that they can succeed where many believe President Johnson Sirleaf and the Unity Party failed: tackling corruption, delivering a more robust peace dividend, rebuilding and strengthening various aspects of the security sector."
So far 11 candidates have registered - including an ex-model, a central banker and career politicians - along with wildly popular footballer George Weah, to give the election a uniquely Liberian flavor.
George Weah at the African Nations Cup Mali 2002. /VCG Photo
Also on the list is Sirleaf's Vice-President Joseph Boakai, 72, although she has given him only tacit support. "I have tested the water and I know that I have a very good chance," Boakai told AFP.
"(Voters) know who people are. They know their past record."
Boakai believes voters will make allowances for Liberia's ongoing problems given the state of the nation the government inherited from the ashes of the civil war.
"We have everything that it takes to develop this country. What we need to do is the proper management of these resources to make sure that it trickles down to its people," he added.
(Source: AFP)
