Charles Taylor’s Wife, Jewel, to Become Liberia’s VP

Ololade Adeyanju/
Jewel Howard-Taylor, wife of former warlord and dictator, Charles Taylor, is set to become the vice president of Liberia.
President-elect and former FIFA World Player of the Year winner, George Weah, named Howard-Taylor as his pick for Vice President.
Charles Taylor is serving a 50-year sentence in Britain for war crimes committed in neighbouring Sierra Leone.
Vote counting started earlier today following a peaceful run-off election for a new president, pitting Weah against Vice-President Joseph Boakai.
Voters were choosing a successor to President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who is stepping down after 12 years as Africa’s first elected female president.
Official results of Tuesday’s vote are expected in a few days, in what would be the West African country’s first democratic transition since 1944.
Weah is expected to be declared winner having won 12 of the 15 counties in the west African country.
The ballot was delayed for seven weeks due to legal challenges lodged by Boakai’s Unity Party against the electoral commission over the conduct of the first round of voting, but many of the complaints appeared to have been addressed in the second round.
The Liberia Elections Observation Network, which had more than 1,000 observers stationed across the country, hailed a vote it said had passed calmly with better organisation than the first poll on October 10, as did observers from the European Union.
Also, former Nigerian president, Goodluck Jonathan, who served as an electoral observer for the US-based National Democratic Institute (NDI), said a successful resolution to the process was of particular importance within the international community.
“This transition is critical and if we succeed, if Liberia succeeds, West Africa succeeded and Africa succeeded,” he said.
“There has been no major incident to report of a technical nature and the voting was peaceful,” noted electoral commission chief, Francis Korkoya.
Weah, 51, played for AC Milan during a glittering career that saw him win the Ballon D’Or and FIFA World Player of the Year.