A long-awaited election

Monrovia, Liberia

A semi-literate soccer star will face a Harvard-trained economist next month in Liberia’s first presidential election after 14 years of brutal civil war. The two were the top vote getters among 22 candidates in the first round of voting last week. The first-place finisher was soccer great George Weah, 39, who won 29 percent of the vote. Weah enjoys strong support among the former child soldiers who once terrorized the country high on drugs. More than 100,000 of them demonstrated for him under the slogan, “Armageddon, the final showdown.” The runner-up, with 20 percent, was Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, 66, a former finance minister popular with the elite. Liberia’s last president, Charles Taylor, the architect of the civil war, went into exile in 2003 and has been indicted for crimes against humanity.