A multi-millionaire former soccer star is the favourite to win in tomorrow's presidential elections in the West African state of Liberia.

George Weah is a 40-year old international soccer phenomenon who has played for AC Milan and Chelsea. His rise from a Monrovia slum to soccer superstardom has captivated much of Liberia’s youth.

His supporters include many among the 100,000 demobilized fighters who raped, pillaged and murdered in the country's bloody civil war.

Twenty-two candidates are vying for the top job in Liberia, where the economy and infrastructure lie in ruins after 14 years of nearly continuous conflict that ended with a peace deal in August 2003. A transitional government has arranged the vote and 15,000 UN peacekeepers are keeping the calm.

Weah’s critics say however that he has neither the education nor the management experience to govern Liberia’s three million people.

Also drawing large crowds at election rallies is Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, 66, a Harvard-educated veteran of Liberia’s often-deadly politics. A former government minister who has worked with overseas banks and international organisations, Johnson-Sirleaf is hailed by many as an astute administrator. If voted into office, her campaign says she would become Africa’s first elected female president.

But her detractors say that she is part of a political class that has only led to Liberia’s ruin and needs to be swept aside.

Also running are two former warlords and a host of other local businessmen and lawyers, among others.

The former US President Jimmy Carter, a seasoned election observer, today hailed Liberians’ dedication to nonviolence and democratic ideals. With campaigning now finished, Carter told reporters that so far he was "quite satisfied" with the run-up to balloting.

"We see the intense commitment of the Liberian people to have an honest, fair, open and safe election," said Carter, who leads a team of dozens of election observers from his Carter Center and the National Democratic Institute, another US group.

Liberians will also select 30 senators and 64 representatives - a bicameral system modeled on that of the United States, from where freed slaves were resettled before the founded Africa’s oldest republic in 1847.

Some 1.3 million Liberians have registered to vote at over 3,000 polling stations, with booths scheduled to remain open between 0800 GMT and 1800 GMT. A candidate must gain over 50 per cent of the votes to avoid a run-off with the runner-up.

Results must be posted within 15 days, although a final tally is expected earlier. A second round, if necessary, would be held in early November.

Liberia tumbled into civil war in 1989 when ex-President Charles Taylor, then a warlord, launched his insurgency.

Violence from Liberia’s brutal civil conflict spilled across borders and convulsed large swathes of the region, leaving hundreds of thousands dead and millions homeless.

Nicephore Soglo, former president of the west African nation of Benin, said he hoped peace would now spread from Liberia.

Taylor won elections during an interlude in fighting in 1997. But another rebellion, including many former Taylor allies, broke out in 2000, and insurrectionist fighters besieged the capital, Monrovia, in 2003. Under heavy international pressure, Taylor stepped down, left the country and a peace deal was quickly signed.

Taylor, accused of war crimes by a UN-backed tribunal in neighbouring Sierra Leone for his role in that country’s decade-long civil war, now lives in exile in Nigeria, which played a leading role in brokering Liberia’s peace.

The vote "is extremely important, not just for the people of Liberia, but for all of the sub-region and the continent," said Soglo, co-heading the observer mission with Carter.

Some 400 international observers and 900 local monitors are in position across Liberia ahead of tomorrow’s vote. The US ambassador to Liberia and human-rights workers have said the country is on track for free and fair elections after a two-month campaign marked by calm.

After some fighting during the voter registration period, no serious violence was recorded during the campaign, said Dan Sargee, acting head of Liberia’s National Commission for Election Monitoring. "The process has been peaceful so far," he said.

Candidates are promising to keep the peace, while rebuilding government-run water and electricity plants and creating jobs in a country where less than a quarter of the population is employed.

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