Sirleaf ahead in first official poll results

MONROVIA, Thursday

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf was slightly ahead of her rival Winston Tubman in presidential elections, as Liberia's electoral commission released its first batch of official results on Thursday.

With only 195,178 votes officially validated, Sirleaf had 86,874 (44.5 percent), Tubman 51,771 (26.5 percent) and ex-warlord and senator Prince Johnson with 26,394 (13.5 percent).

Unofficial figures tallied by a media monitoring group collecting results posted at individual polling stations showed the same dynamic with nearly 400,000 votes counted, pointing to a likely run-off election.

n third place, the notorious Johnson, who infamously ordered and filmed the execution of dictator Samuel Doe in 1990, could prove a surprise kingmaker in an eventual second round of voting.

Some 1.8 million were registered to vote in the election, the second since the end of a 14-year civil war in 2003.

The electoral commission has until October 26 to announce the final results.