ADDIS ABABA, Dec. 26 (Xinhua) -- As Liberia heads for a presidential runoff election on Tuesday, the African Union (AU) has redeployed its election observers (AUEOM) in the country.
Chairperson of the African Union (AU) Commission Moussa Faki Mahama has approved the redeployment and the redeployed observers have been in Liberia since Dec.23 and will stay to Dec.31, according to a statement of the pan-African bloc on Tuesday.
The statement recalled that AU has been engaged in the electoral process in Liberia by deploying a pre-election assessment mission in February 2017, and long-term and short-term observers on Sept.1 and Oct.3, respectively, to observe the first round Presidential and House of Representative elections held on 10 October 2017.
Although the elections passed on peacefully, and were deemed largely transparent and credible by election observation missions of both local and international, including the AU observers (AUEOM), no candidate was able to secure the 50 percent plus one valid votes cast required by law to be elected president in the first round, said the statement.
A runoff presidential election was therefore scheduled for November 7 but which was suspended due to pending legal challenges, it said.
Following the final determination and lifting of suspension of the conduct of the run-off election by the Supreme Court of Liberia, the National Electoral Commission has announced Dec. 26 as the new date for the conduct of the election between incumbent Vice President Joseph Boakai of the Unity Party (UP) and Senator George Weah of the Coalition for Democratic Change (CDC).
The two had garnered in the first round 28.8 percent and 38.4 perecnt respectively, according to the statement.
