It looks as though 60% wanted Weah rather than the existing Vice President Boakai. There have been charges of nepotism and corruption for several years aimed at Ellen and Boakai--possibly they stuck and people wanted a clean house. Maybe 12 years in politics honed Weah's skills a bit. Maybe there aren't enough Kissi and related tribes for Boakai to match the Kru and supporting tribes for Weah.
Or all of the above to some degree. Pretty much all the information I get is filtered by the Liberian media or through fairly well-off Liberians in the US.
Both men had joined the Poro : Weah in 2005 and Boakai in 2017 (or very early in life if a spokesman told the truth). That's an aspect of the Liberian political scene that I have no way of analyzing. Even if I were on the scene in Liberia, the Poro is a secret society. How do the leaders of the Poro exert influence and for what purposes? No clue.
Weah converted from Christianity to Islam, and then back again, if Wikipedia may be believed. I'm not sure what to make of that, either.
It looks like a simple headline--Former footballer elected President--but things are much more curious when you look closer.
At any rate, I wish him and Liberia the best. He'll have an interesting term--the UN will probably withdraw its peacekeeping troops during his tenure, and that will have an unhappy effect on the economy. For which he'll probably be blamed. It's traditional.
(*) It is in the top 35% of business programs in the US.
The photo of him in the first link shows microphones labled "UNMIL Radio." I didn't realize that the UN military ran a radio station. I'm really out of the loop...
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