*crowd gathering to see CDC candidates

*The candidates

*At a Clemenceau B. Urey rally

By: Our Staff Reporter

The just ended Montserrado County Senatorial By-Election has so far not produced an out-right winner, making a second round likely. The Unity Party (UP)’s Clemenceau B. Urey and the Congress for Democratic Change (CDC)’s Geraldine Doe Sherif are at the verge of heading to runoff in the coming weeks with the first round of voting yet to produce a clear winner with a vote of 50% of the total ballot cast plus one. This is in accordance with the electoral law of Liberia which requires a simple majority for a winner to be announced.

The battle has been between Urey and Sherif with each of them topping various preliminary results but only slightly. The latest preliminary results put the CDC candidate, Sherif, on top thus far with 36 % while Urey holds 29 % of the total votes. This is followed by Professor Wilson Tarpeh who accumulated a little over 17% of the votes.

On the first day of vote tallying, Urey of the ruling UP had a slight lead with 1449 constituting 36.3% of a total vote of 4038 while the CDC’s Sherif had a little over 31 %. The next day, Sherif took the lead of some 36 % of the vote while Urey fell to 29%. This could send a signal of how the 2011 presidential elections will fare.

The final results are expected to be announced over the weekend with the possible second run-off scheduled to take place on November 24.

There are 10 candidates vying for the single vacant seat necessitated by the death of Hannah G. Brent of the CDC. They are: Jacqueline Capehart (independent), Darius Dillion, Sr. (Liberty Party), Geraldine Doe-Sherif (Congress for Democratic Change), Daniel Johnson (independent), Grace Kpaan (independent), Alhaji Kromah (independent), Jasper Ndaborlor (Free Democratic Party),Wilson Tarpeh (Alliance for Peace and Democracy), Nathaniel Toe, Jr. (independent)and Clemenceau Urey (Unity Party).

Not only has the Montserrado by-election been a contest for a single senatorial seat, but it has also been a race between political heavyweights in Liberia who are testing their popularity with the election in a county that hosts close to half of the total population of 3.4 million people.

As the two parties and their candidates prepare for runoff election, the dye is now cast and the battle line drawn to find out who is most popular in Montserrado.