Liberian President George Weah says will reelection this year

• Liberia’s President George Weah will seek reelection this year.
• His first term has been tainted by corruption charges and an economic crisis.
• He won the most recent general election by a landslide in 2017.

President George Weah of Liberia said on Monday that he would seek reelection this year following a first term tainted by corruption charges and an economic crisis.

Weah, 56, took the office in 2018 following the first peaceful transfer of power in the nation of West Africa in seven decades. He is constitutionally qualified to run again in the election on October 10.

He pledged to pursue development, growth, and peace in parliament on Monday. “I will be coming to you shortly to ask you to renew my term, a mandate that you give me six years ago.”

A military takeover in 1980 and a 14-year civil war that concluded in 2003 have left Liberia still in recovery.

Weah, a former international football star who came from a Monrovia slum and climbed to renown, won the most recent general election by a landslide in 2017 thanks to the backing of the underprivileged and young.

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He pledged to eradicate the widespread corruption that his predecessor, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, was heavily criticized for failing to confront.

But he quickly encountered the same reproaches. Numerous claims of misappropriation of public monies inside Weah’s government surfaced in 2018 following a corruption incident in which Liberia lost $100 million in freshly minted central bank notes.

Three Liberian government officials, including Weah’s chief of staff, were sanctioned by the US last year for what it claimed was their continued involvement in public corruption.

In a nation where the majority of the population lives in extreme poverty, disillusionment has been made worse by economic deterioration.

Weah announced in October 2020 that he would only run for two terms in office. At the time, he was concerned about unrest in Guinea and Ivory Coast due to their presidents’ third-term ambitions.

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