UN forces fire tear gas at Liberia poll protest

UN forces fired tear gas at angry supporters of Liberian football star George Weah yesterday after they stoned police and marched to the US embassy to demand a halt to counting in an election Mr Weah says was rigged.

Police from the UN peacekeeping force also used batons to disperse hundreds of Weah supporters who broke through a line of Liberian riot police near the imposing beachside US embassy building.

A 20-year-old woman was bleeding from the head after being hit by a UN policeman, witnesses said, provoking a furious reaction from some in the crowd, who chanted "Wicked UN".

Earlier, Mr Weah supporters chanted "No Weah, no peace," and "No Weah, no President" and hurled stones at riot police in front of the National Elections Commission (NEC) as UN helicopters hovered overhead.

With 97 per cent of polling stations' votes counted from Tuesday's run-off ballot, Harvard-trained former Finance Minister Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf has an unassailable 59.4 per cent.

Mr Weah and his Congress for Democratic Change party insist the vote was rigged and have filed an application to the country's Supreme Court to try to stop the counting process.

But the court told Mr Weah's campaign team it could not consider the complaint until the NEC had investigated it.

"If the NEC rules and we are not satisfied then we have to go back to the Supreme Court," said Steve Quoah, campaign spokesman for the former AC Milan striker, adding they would have five days after the NEC ruling to appeal. NEC chief Frances Johnson-Morris said she had not been instructed to stop counting.

"We have not received anything from the Supreme Court to stop counting," she told reporters.

International observers have said Tuesday's run-off, which followed an inconclusive first round last month in which Mr Weah came first, was generally free and fair. Businesses in some parts of Monrovia closed yesterday as crowds of Mr Weah supporters marched, carrying palm branches.

Mr Weah addressed supporters at the party headquarters and appealed for calm. The election is intended to draw a line under 14 years of war in Africa's oldest republic, founded in 1847 by freed black slaves from America.