The United States government has given an additional 400,000 dollars toward Liberia's first democratic elections following 14 years of civil war, an embassy statement said here on Sunday.

The amount is in addition to the 10 million US dollars the American government has already spent to "ensure that free, fair, and transparent elections will decide who will be Liberia's next president," the statement said.

"The combined efforts represent one of the largest-ever election support programs undertaken anywhere (by the US government) in the world," it said.

The current electoral process in the west African state is part of a peace deal brokered in August 2003 by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to end the 14-year civil crisis in the country.

About a million of the 1.35 million registered voters turned out on October 11 to elect a president and 94 legislators as mandated by the peace arrangement.

But a presidential run-off election between football star George Weah and former World Bank executive Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf arose when neither of the pack of 22 candidates could obtain the more than 50 percent votes required to win.

Weah, 39, got 28.3 percent of the votes while Harvard-trained Johnson-Sirleaf got 19.8 percent, thereby making them the two leading candidates of the pack of 22 for the run-off election scheduled on Tuesday.

The US funds are being used to support international observation missions from the Carter Center, National Democratic Institute, and the International Republican Institute.

Additionally, the embassy said, "the funds also enabled the enhancement of voter education efforts across the country in the run up to Tuesday's presidential runoff elections."

US Ambassador to Liberia Donald Booth is quoted by the statement as saying that "the October elections were a dramatic statement to the world that the Liberian people will only accept leaders who work toward a peaceful, prosperous, and democratic future for all Liberians."

"The United States wants this desire to be realized and has decided to dedicate even more resources to ensure that Tuesday's ( run-off) elections will be free and fair," Booth added.

Liberia was founded in the 1800s by freed slaves from the United States and subsequently declared its independence in July 1847.

In 1980, some 17 military men, led by sergeant Samuel Doe toppled the civilian regime of president William Tolbert, following which, under pressure for democratic rule, the military regime of sergeant Doe conducted national elections in which he contested and won under "suspicious circumstances."

Efforts to have Doe removed from power led to the 14-year civil war from 1989 to 2003 in which an estimated 250,000 people died and about one million made refugees.

The ECOWAS brokered peace deal among the warring factions has led to the two-year power-sharing transitional government and a UN Security Council authorization of 15,000 United Nations peacekeeping troops, whose presence in the west African State has stabilized the situation, creating an enabling environment for the national elections.

The elections would bring to an end the transitional power- sharing arrangement next January 16th.

Source: Xinhua