Ex-warlord becomes kingmaker in Liberia

[G_j]

Source: AP

Ex-warlord becomes kingmaker in Liberia

AP foreign, Thursday October 13 2011 RUKMINI CALLIMACHI

Associated Press= MONROVIA, Liberia (AP)

A rebel leader who videotaped himself drinking Budweiser as his men cut off the ears of the nation's former president has finished third in this week's presidential election, according to partial results issued Thursday, thrusting the notorious ex-warlord into the role of kingmaker.

Incumbent Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, a Nobel Peace laureate who is the continent's only female president, may have finished first with 41.7 percent of the vote, according to the partial tally issued by the electoral commission that represents ballots from around one-sixth of polling stations. But with 24.5 percent voting for her challenger, she needs No. 3 Prince Johnson's endorsement to win the upcoming runoff.

Despite being named one of the main actors in Liberia's horrific civil war, Johnson remains popular in his home county, which elected him senator and he is in third place with 12.5 percent of the vote.

"I will be happy to be the kingmaker," Johnson told The Associated Press on Thursday. "And where we will put our support will depend on what our supporters say. ... We will not put our votes into someone's hands blindly."



Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/9893705

[ixion]

1. and so it goes...

You dethrone one tinpot dictator, and another takes his place.