Liberians await result of landmark polls

Euphoria turned to nervous anticipation in Liberia today as election officials using battery-powered lanterns counted ballots…

Euphoria turned to nervous anticipation in Liberia today as election officials using battery-powered lanterns counted ballots through the night from the country's first postwar polls.

Many Liberians saw yesterday's elections -- the first since the end of a civil war which ripped the West African country apart -- as a historic opportunity for their country to emerge from a devastating cycle of poverty and violence.

The polls pitted millionaire soccer star George Weah against former warlords, wealthy lawyers and a Harvard-educated economist who could become Africa's first elected female president.

"I'm going to be real, real tense over the next few days," said Claudius Broderick, 31, after voting just before polls closed late yesterday in the Paynesville suburb of the battered capital Monrovia.

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On street corners, groups of young men clasped portable radios to their ears, waiting for news.

The head of Liberia 's elections commission, Frances Johnson-Morris, said she expected to announce some initial results later today, though it would take longer for information to come from outlying polling stations, some of which are more than two days walk from the nearest road.

Liberia 's 14-year civil war killed a quarter of a million people, uprooted almost a third of the population and left the country's infrastructure in ruins. More than two years after a peace deal, even the capital remains without mains electricity or running water.

Election observers, diplomats and UN officials praised the calm way in which Liberians voted. Many waited patiently for hours in the blazing sun to cast their ballots.

"Eighty per cent turnout would be my estimation," Max van den Berg, head of a European Union observation team said.