Africa will soon have female head of state

NAIROBI, Kenya – A Harvard-trained economist was poised to become Africa’s first female head of state Thursday as she built a nearly insurmountable lead in Liberia’s runoff presidential election.

With about 90 percent of the vote tallied, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf led ex-soccer star George Weah 59 percent to 41 percent. The election is Liberia’s first since the end of a 14-year civil war.

Weah, the pre-election favorite, has challenged the results, claiming that ballot boxes were stuffed for his opponent. Election officials will conduct an investigation, but international observers said Tuesday’s election appeared fair and downplayed Weah’s charges.

“So far the level of fraud that he has indicated, at least publicly, would not seem to rise to the level that would challenge the results of the election,” said Paul Risley, a spokesman for the United Nations mission in Liberia.

The fraud charges marred the climax of a largely free and peaceful election that represented a critical point in Liberia’s transition from civil war, which left it among the world’s poorest countries. Unemployment is estimated at 85 percent, and the seaside capital, Monrovia, lacks electricity and running water.

A national hero with a thin education and no political experience, Weah captured the support of young voters, including thousands of unemployed males who once wielded Kalashnikov rifles as child soldiers.

But voters in the runoff appeared to favor Johnson-Sirleaf’s robust resume – she served as the country’s finance minister and worked at the United Nations and the World Bank – and her reputation for toughness, which earned her the nickname “Iron Lady.”

Although she struggled at times to explain her past support for the dictator Charles Taylor – who presided over Liberia’s decline in the 1990s and is now in exile in Nigeria – Johnson-Sirleaf won over voters with her technocratic savvy and pragmatism, aides said.

She’s pledged to trim government bureaucracy, promote foreign investment and prioritize basic services such as water, roads and health care.