足球巨星维阿和副总统博阿凯在利比里亚总统选举初步选票统计中暂时领先。不过，选举官员说，到投票后第三天的星期四为止，只清点了三分之一的选票。
利比里亚选民星期二投票。这次选举是这个西非国家70多年来第一次从一个民选总统向下一个民选总统的平稳权力交接。
利比里亚自由党要求选举当局停止清点选票，声称选举中有舞弊和欺诈。
利比里亚选民要挑选接替非洲第一位民选女性国家元首瑟利夫的人。瑟利夫担任了两任总统，一次任期6年。依照利比里亚宪法，她不能第三次连任。
总共有20名候选人角逐总统的职位。分析人士认为，不可能有任何人赢得50%以上的选票，因此必须在11月举行决选。
这次参选的只有一名女性候选人。另一名女性泰勒担任球星维阿的竞选搭档。泰勒是前总统和军阀查尔斯·泰勒的前妻。查尔斯·泰勒被判20年前参与邻国塞拉利昂的冲突，犯有战争罪，正在狱中服50年的徒刑。
利比里亚14年的内战2003年结束后，瑟利夫在和平时期担任总统。但是利比里亚仍然存在严重的腐败问题，并正努力从2014年和2015年造成5000人丧生的埃博拉危机中复苏。
Football icon George Weah and Vice President Joseph Bokai are the early front runners in Liberia’s presidential election results, but election officials said only a third of the ballots had been counted on Thursday, three days after the vote.
Voters cast their ballots on Tuesday, marking the West African nation’s first smooth transition of power from one democratically elected leadership to another in more than 70 years.
The Liberty Party, however, wants election authorities to stop counting the votes, citing voting irregularities and fraud.
Liberians went to polls to choose the successor to Nobel Peace laureate Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Africa’s first female elected head of state, who is stepping down after serving two six-year terms, as mandated by Liberia’s constitution.
With 20 people running for the West African nation’s highest office, analysts do not believe anyone will win over 50 percent of the vote, forcing a runoff in November.
Only one woman is vying for the presidency, while another woman, Jewel Howard Taylor, is the running mate of George Weah. Taylor is the ex-wife of former president and warlord Charles Taylor, who is serving a 50-year prison sentence for war crimes in connection with the conflict in neighboring Sierra Leone two decades ago.
Sirleaf has led Liberia through a period of peace in the aftermath of a 14-year civil war that ended in 2003. But the country remains plagued by corruption, and is still trying to recover from the Ebola crisis that killed 5,000 people in 2014 and 2015.