Weh Nengon arrived at St Peter’s Lutheran church at 5am on Tuesday to cast his vote in the Liberian presidential run-off.
Under the asphalt at his feet lay his 18-year-old nephew, George, one of more than 600 unarmed men, women and children who sought refuge in the church 15 years ago and were massacred by the Liberian army.
“I remember the heat of the war, starvation, people dying,” said 48-year-old Nengon, gesturing to the two simple white stars painted in the car park that mark the mass graves. It is hard to forget; inside the church, the windows are still marked by bullet holes and there are dark stains on the marble floor where the blood soaked in too deeply to be scrubbed out.
But, like the hundreds of other voters patiently queuing around him, Nengon has faith that the elections will finally bring peace. More than 250 000 died in the country’s 14-year civil war.
Two years after a peace deal pushed former warlord-turned-president Charles Taylor into exile, the war-weary West African nation will have its first democratically elected leader.
At noon on Thursday, with 80% of the ballots counted, former finance minister Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf had secured 58% of the vote and her rival, footballer and multimillionaire George Weah, stood at 42%. Should she hold on to her lead, Harvard-educated Sirleaf, a former World Bank official and political veteran, will become the first woman to become president on the African continent.
Weah’s Congress for Democratic Change has lodged a formal complaint with the National Elections Commission alleging fraud that would “significantly impact” on the outcome of the election.
His rise to stardom from the slums of Monrovia has made him popular with disaffected youths who see in him the fulfilment of their own dreams.
His campaign highlighted Sirleaf’s early support for president Taylor.
That’s why Henry Williams, a storekeeper from Totota, voted for one of the other 22 original candidates in the first round, which international observers declared free and fair. But he switched allegiance to Sirleaf on Tuesday because “we need development and she has the international influence”.
Turnout on Tuesday was significantly lower than in October’s elections. In many polling stations where there had been long queues in the first round, security outnumbered voters.
Apart from five arrests on election day, campaigning was peaceful. The 15 000 United Nations peacekeepers in the country were taking no chances. Irish soldiers rumbled down the potholed streets of the capital in convoys of tanks, while white helicopters circled overhead.
“Elections in this country have previously been marred by force and we are anxious to let groups and individuals know that we will not tolerate it,” explained Alan Doss, the UN’s top official in the country. “But it was also important to let people know that their vote was secure.”
James Harmon, a polling official at St Peter’s, agrees. He became a monitor to ensure everything would be done properly. “For us, democracy is not just a word.”