JOIN USAmnesty International called for a shooting in which four opposition supporters were killed on Monday to be probed, casting the shadow of Liberia’s bloody past over the west African country’s second post-war polls.
Sirleaf’s challenger Winston Tubman cried foul after trailing Sirleaf in last month’s first round but US President Barack Obama dismissed his fraud concerns as baseless and scolded him over his boycott call.
Whether heeding Tubman’s call or shielding from a repeat of Monday’s deadly incident, voters turned out in small numbers for an election that looked certain to return the 73-year-old Sirleaf.
“I have come to vote but I am not happy for what happened on Monday, after all we are all Liberian and no one should be happy seeing other Liberians being killed,” said Rita Queegbay, 39, one of only about 30 people at the Duport Road polling station.
Sirleaf’s fellow Liberian Nobel laureate Leymah Gbowee turned out to vote, saying the election was a “defining moment” for her country’s fragile democracy, just eight years after the end of a long and brutal war.
“Liberians lived in fear for so many years and today people, regardless of the number of people... have defied fear and intimidation and stepped out to vote,” she said.