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Monrovia, Liberia | AFP | President Ellen Sirleaf’s vice president since 2005, Joseph Boakai has campaigned as a natural transition candidate after helping to ensure peace has prevailed in Liberia since back-to-back civil wars.
Boakai will face former footballer George Weah in a runoff for the presidency on November 7, and is trailing the former footballer in the majority of the country.
Boakai presents himself as an everyman who transcended his humble beginnings, and has attempted to craft a more energetic image after earning the unfortunate title of “Sleepy Joe” for his propensity to fall asleep at public events.
Boakai, 72, has also had to undertake a delicate balancing act to promote his record in government while distancing himself from Sirleaf to define his own vision.
His Unity Party has struggled to deliver economic prosperity alongside peace, and Boakai has pledged to invest in infrastructure and to alleviate the extreme poverty still suffered by most Liberians.
“We need to assure the people that this time they are going to see progress, that they will see corruption going away,” he told AFP on the campaign trail.
Sirleaf failed to throw her weight behind Boakai in the final few weeks of the campaign, a decision that has mystified some of his supporters.
– Televangelists and racecars –
Born in a village in northern Lofa county, Boakai served as agriculture minister under former president Samuel Doe, who was brutally murdered in 1990.
Boakai, a father of four, benefits from the backing of older voters who value the stability his party has brought after living through back-to-back civil wars between 1989 and 2003.
“He will be able to continue where this outgoing government left off,” explained supporter Samuel Gbazeki, 64.
“To rebuild after war is very costly. This government has done some tremendous things,” he told AFP before voting.
Boakai is known for his fervent Christian beliefs and support of church initiatives, and has even earned the endorsement of an American televangelist with close links to US President Donald Trump.
“Vice President Boakai is a man of status and a great man of integrity. His faith in God will guard him into the incoming years of leadership, should Liberians elect him,” Liberia’s Front Page Africa reported Pastor Paula White-Cain as saying.
Boakai made waves for referring to himself during a presidential debate as “a race car in the garage,” asserting the nation needed to “put a race car on the track and see what that car will do.”
He was widely derided for the remark by his opponents, notably by former Coca-Cola executive Alexander Cummings, who is seen as a potential kingmaker in the runoff.
“From what I know about race cars,” Cummings told local radio, “if you park a race car in the garage for 12 years and it doesn’t move, it becomes obsolete.”
