Liberia Will OK Challenged Votes
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MONROVIA, Liberia — This country’s top election official said Thursday that he will validate all votes cast at military installations and police posts even though opposition poll watchers were not present and, in at least one case, were ordered off the voting site by armed soldiers.
Emmett Harmon, chairman of Liberia’s election commission, said he sees no basis for complaints raised by three of Liberia’s political parties that voting procedures at the military and police stations were rigged to favor the candidacy of Liberia’s head of state, Samuel K. Doe, who overthrew a civilian government here in 1980.
About 700,000 Liberians voted Tuesday in an election designed to return the country to civilian rule.
No results are expected for several days.
Political figures opposed to Doe’s National Democratic Party of Liberia were quick to respond to Harmon’s statements to reporters here Thursday.
“It now seems clear that the election commissioner is part and parcel of a massive election fraud,” said Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, a senatorial candidate for the Liberia Action Party.
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