Liberia closes borders after opposition rejects election results — report

MONROVIA, Oct. 15 – Liberia closed its land borders with its neighbors on Saturday after the country’s main opposition party claimed the election results as fraudulent, AFP reported.

The west African country closed its borders withSierra Leone,GuineaandCote d’Ivoire, said the report, quoting a security source.

According to the country’s National Elections Commission (NEC), incumbent President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, candidate of the Unity Party, has so far taken the lead ahead of 15 other candidates with 424,296, or 44.6 percent, of the total votes tallied.

The country’s nine opposition parties said they rejected the election results in a joint statement issued on Saturday, declaring the results as “flawed” and therefore “null and void.”

They threatened to withdraw all their party agents assigned at the NEC immediately.

However, head of the election commission James Fromayah rejected such allegations, saying “the counting was done and both the local population and the international observers that came acclaimed the process to be free, fair and transparent.”

An official from theCarterCenter, an election watchdog, said they had not seen any evidence of fraud.

A candidate is required to obtain 50 percent plus one vote to win the presidency. But if none of the candidates obtains the 50 percent plus one vote, the leading two candidates with more votes would go into a runoff election.

Final results are expected on Oct. 26. Should there be a runoff, it is to be held in early November.

by Xinhua

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