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Rich Profile Of Joseph Boakai, Political Veteran Set To Lead Liberia

Published

2 years ago

November 18, 2023

Editor

Joseph Boakai, who is expected to win the presidency in Liberia after incumbent leader George Weah conceded election defeat, has four decades of political experience behind him.

Boakai was vice president from 2006 to 2018 to Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Africa’s first elected female president, who rebuilt the ravaged country after a civil war left an estimated 250,000 dead.

This week’s vote was Boakai’s second run for the top job after he lost to President George Weah in a 2017 run-off.

The two faced off again in a second-round vote on Tuesday, following last month’s hard-fought first ballot, in which neither secured an outright victory.

Boakai, 78, has castigated the record of his opponent, a former international star footballer, and emphasised his own experience in office, proposing a “rescue plan” for the West African country.

He has pledged to improve infrastructure, invest in agriculture, attract investment, open the country to tourism and restore Liberia’s reputation.

“His motivation is to rescue Liberia from the current state it is in,” Mohammed Ali, Boakai’s Unity Party spokesman, told AFP ahead of the vote.

He highlighted an “influx of illicit drugs, the increase in the poverty rate (and) the image of the country being so low” as problems that have worsened under Weah’s presidency.

His strategy seemed to have worked.

While six years ago Boakai won 28.8 percent in the first round and 38.5 percent in the second, he pulled level with Weah in this year’s first round, with both receiving about 43 percent of the vote.

With almost all the polling stations tallied after the latest run-off, Boakai had garnered 50.89 percent of votes against Weah’s 49.11 percent.

– Alliances –

Boakai has promised an inclusive government, reflecting the country’s political, ethnic, regional, religious and gender diversity.

Some of the 18 other candidates who were now out of the second-round race have endorsed him.

In the first round, he skillfully built alliances with local political leaders, such as the former warlord Prince Johnson, who supported Weah in 2017 and still enjoys strong support in his native Nimba County.

An ally of Johnson — now a member of the Liberian Senate who is under US sanctions for corruption and was seen in a 1990 video sipping beer while his soldiers torture and kill president Samuel Doe — is Boakai’s running mate.

Their ticket won easily in the heavily populated northeastern region.

Like 57-year-old Weah, Boakai is from the Indigenous population and not the US-Liberian elite, who founded the free nation and were descended from slaves.

He was born in a remote village in Lofa County near the borders with Guinea and Sierra Leone, often called Liberia’s “breadbasket”.

He was agriculture minister from 1983 to 1985 under Doe.

Boakai portrays himself as a simple man who rose from humble origins through hard work. He is married with four children.

– Age and credentials –

Throughout the campaign, his team presented Boakai as a man of integrity whose credentials make him the only candidate able to tackle corruption — one of Weah’s key 2017 promises and one on which some voters say he has failed.

“He believes in perfection, he takes note of everything,” his senior adviser Augustin Konneh told AFP.

“Boakai is a very humble person.”

His opponents have argued that his age is a handicap, suggesting he is out of touch in a country where 60 percent of the population is under the age of 25.

Rather than aspiring to run the country, they say he should retire and have nicknamed him “Sleepy Joe.”

Headline

Syrian Ex-leader Assad Faces War Crime Charges For Killing Journalists

Published

6 hours ago

September 2, 2025

Editor

French judicial authorities have issued arrest warrants for ousted Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and six other top former officials over the bombardment of a rebel-held city in 2012 that killed two journalists, lawyers said Tuesday.

Marie Colvin, 56, an American working for The Sunday Times of Britain, and French photographer Remi Ochlik, 28, were killed on February 22, 2012, by the explosion in the eastern city of Homs, which is being investigated by the French judiciary as a potential crime against humanity as well as a war crime.

British photographer Paul Conroy, French reporter Edith Bouvier, and Syrian translator Wael Omar were wounded in the attack on the informal press centre where they had been working.

Assad escaped with his family to Russia after being ousted by Islamist rebels at the end of 2024, although his precise whereabouts have not been confirmed.

Other than Assad, the warrants notably target his brother Maher al-Assad, who was the de facto head of the 4th Syrian armoured division at the time, intelligence chief Ali Mamlouk, and then-army chief of staff Ali Ayoub.

“The issuing of the seven arrest warrants is a decisive step that paves the way for a trial in France for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Bashar al-Assad’s regime,” said Clemence Bectarte, lawyer for the Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and Ochlik’s parents.

The FIDH said the journalists had clandestinely entered the besieged city to “document the crimes committed by Bashar al-Assad’s regime” and were victims of a “targeted bombing”.

“The investigation clearly established that the attack on the informal press centre was part of the Syrian regime’s explicit intention to target foreign journalists to limit media coverage of its crimes and force them to leave the city and the country,” said Mazen Darwish, lawyer and director of the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression (SCM).

Colvin was known for her fearless reporting and signature black eye patch, which she wore after losing sight in one eye in an explosion during Sri Lanka’s civil war. Her career was celebrated in a Golden Globe-nominated film, “A Private War”.

AFP

Headline

Ghana’s President Sacks Chief Justice Over Corruption Allegations

Published

1 day ago

September 1, 2025

Editor

President John Dramani Mahama has dismissed the Chief Justice of Ghana following the outcome of a high-level investigation into allegations of falsifying judicial records and misusing public funds.

A five-member commission, chaired by a Supreme Court judge and set up by Mahama, concluded that the allegations against the country’s top judicial officer were substantiated and recommended her removal.

“After considering the petition and the evidence, the Committee found that the grounds of stated misbehaviour under Article 146(1) had been established and recommended her removal from office,” said the spokesperson to the President, Felix Ofosu, in a statement on Monday.

“President John Dramani Mahama has accordingly removed the Chief Justice from office with immediate effect.”

The dismissal marks the first time a sitting Chief Justice in Ghana has been investigated and dismissed from office.

While Mahama, who took office in January, has repeatedly pledged to intensify the fight against corruption, it remains unclear whether the embattled Chief Justice, Gertrude Torkonoo, will face criminal prosecution.

Headline

Danish Court Sentences Ex-minister To Prison For Child Abuse Material

Published

1 day ago

September 1, 2025

Editor

A former Danish government minister was jailed for four months on Monday for possession of thousands of images of child sexual abuse.

Henrik Sass Larsen, once a senior Social Democrat who served as industry minister, admitted to having more than 6,000 photographs and 2,000 videos on his computer depicting sexual abuse of children.

He had denied the charges, saying he had the material because he was trying to find out who had abused him as a child.

Prosecutor Maria Cingari said she was “satisfied” with the verdict but added that it was sad that someone “who managed to make the most out of their life despite a bad start finds himself in such a situation.”

“You should never be in possession of child pornography, no matter the reason,” Cingari added.

During his trial, the 59-year-old told the court he had received a link in 2018 to a 50-year-old video showing him being sexually abused when he was three years old.

He testified that he received another video clip in 2020, in which a three-year-old girl was raped in his presence when he was around the same age.

The two videos disappeared after he viewed them, he said.

He told the court he regretted not having contacted the police when he received the videos.

Sass Larsen was also accused of being in possession of a child sex doll, but the court did not find him guilty on that charge.

His lawyer, Berit Ernst, told reporters that “we’ll see if it is a definitive end or if we will appeal.”

The scandal came to light last March and led to his expulsion from the Social Democratic Party.

At the time, Social Democratic Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen expressed her shock over the case.

AFP