Liberian opposition parties reject preliminary polls results

Opposition political parties in Liberia on Saturday rejected the provisional results from Tuesday' s presidential and legislative elections. The elections commission has since Thursday began announcing the results putting incumbent president Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf ahead of 15 other candidates with 45.4 percent of the votes, followed by candidate from the Congress for Democratic Change (CDC) Winston Tubman with 29.5 percent. In third place is former warlord and now Senator, Prince Y. Johnson with 11.5 percent of the votes. But at a press conference Saturday, the two current largest opposition parties, CDC represented by Vice Presidential candidate and former football legend George Weah and the National Union for Democratic Progress (NUDP) of former warlord Prince Y. Johnson, along with about six smaller parties, alleged that the results were "fraudulent, null and void." The aggrieved opposition parties also accused the elections commission of biases in favor of the ruling party. The opposition parties have therefore instructed their party agents to withdraw from all polling centers around the country and return to their respective party headquarters. Usually, electoral complaints, depending on the nature of the complaint, are filed either with the elections commission or with the Supreme Court of Liberia. It is not clear which one of these steps the aggrieved opposition parties would use. Liberians went to the polls on Tuesday to elect a president and 88 legislators. As of Friday evening, Chairman of the elections commission James Fromayan announced the second preliminary results and said President Johnson-Sirleaf of the ruling Unity Party obtained 265, 883 votes representing 45.4 percent of the votes, followed by candidate from the opposition Congress for Democratic Change (CDC) Winston Tubman with 172,681 of the votes representing 29.5 percent, and former warlord and Senator, Prince Y. Johnson of the National Union for Democratic Progress (NUDP) maintained the third place with 66,419 votes representing 11.5 percent of the votes. According to the chief elections commissioner, 629,277 votes were processed from 2,242 of the 4,457 polling places nationwide. The elections commission is expected to continue with the announcement of provisional results on Saturday evening. Liberia went through 14 years of civil war, and the elections, the second since the war ended in 2003, is seen as a consolidation of peace and stability. Meanwhile, there are more than 800 international observers from 36 international organizations and more than 400 local observers from 68 local organizations at the polls, most of whom have reported that the elections were peaceful, orderly and transparent and that irregularities were not to a magnitude that could undermine the results. Meanwhile, police spokesman George Bardue said the police are investigating reports that an office outside Monrovia belonging to the ruling Unity Party was burnt by unknown persons. No arrest has been made.