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George Weah holds huge pre-election rally in Liberia
(Reuters)
Updated: 2005-10-09 16:16
MONROVIA, Oct 8 (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of supporters of Liberian
presidential hopeful George Weah brought Monrovia to a standstill on Saturday as
the millionaire soccer star held a final campaign rally before Liberia's first
post-war elections.
Former
international soccer star and presidential hopeful George Weah gestures
during a campaign rally for the Congress for Democratic Change at his
headquarters in Monrovia October 8, 2005. Tens of thousands of supporters
brought Monrovia to a standstill on Saturday as the millionaire soccer
star held a final campaign rally before Liberia's first post-war
elections.[Reuters] | The presidential and
parliamentary polls on Tuesday are meant to draw a line under a 14-year civil
war in Liberia -- one of the most brutal conflicts ever seen in Africa -- which
killed a quarter of a million people and ended with a 2003 peace deal.
Wearing white T-shirts and bandanas bearing Weah's name or image, huge crowds
of fans of the former AC Milan striker flooded roads on the edge of the capital
as they marched from his home in a Monrovia suburb to his party headquarters.
In the crush, a 45-year-old man died from heat exhaustion and four more
people were treated in hospital, witnesses said.
"George! George! He play football! He play football!," chanted one group of
young men, running in formation.
The only African to have won FIFA's World Player of the Year award, which he
obtained in 1995, 39-year-old Weah is one of the favourites to win Tuesday's
poll.
His main challenger is considered to be veteran opposition politician Ellen
Johnson-Sirleaf, a former World Bank economist whose final rally on Thursday
drew around 20,000 supporters. She and Weah are among 22 candidates standing for
the presidency.
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