Weah Will Run in 2029, and He Is Running on the Cocaine Case

Published: July 30, 2026

PHILADELPHIA, United States – Former President George Manneh Weah will contest Liberia’s 2029 presidential election, he said Thursday, and he intends to campaign against a government he says has admitted that drug traffickers compromised its integrity.

Weah, political leader of the opposition Coalition for Democratic Change, made the commitment at the opening of the party’s United States chapter convention, three years out from a vote that his own party’s control of both houses of the Legislature already shapes.

“I will be contesting for the presidency of the Republic of Liberia in 2029,” he said. “With your support, your blessings, and the mandate of the Congress for Democratic Change, I make this declaration because I have watched alongside you as everything we have labored to build has been placed on a plate, and I refuse to stand on the sidelines while our country is dismantled before our eyes.”

The former President referenced the government’s own disclosures against it, after the Inspector General of Police told Liberians that police officers had escorted a record cocaine consignment and that senior state actors had sanctioned the trafficking operation.

“By their own admission, we now have a government whose integrity has been compromised by a cartel of drug traffickers, a betrayal so grave it threatens the very sovereignty and security of our nation,” Weah said.

He did not say which admission he was referring to, and did not address the fact that Inspector General Gregory Coleman has said the investigation is now examining people who held presidential appointments between 2019 and 2023, the period covering Weah’s own administration.

Weah built the rest of his case on the conduct of the other two branches of government, accusing President Joseph Nyuma Boakai’s administration of the most aggressive executive interference in Liberia’s post-war history.

“The level of executive interference into the other two branches of government has never, never, in the history of our post-war democracy, been as pronounced, as reckless, or as dangerous as it is under this administration,” he said.

“This is not governance. It is a systematic, calculated assault on the rule of law itself. It is a government that continues to violate the very Constitution it swore to defend, a government that treats the founding document not as the sacred law of the land, but as an inconvenience to be stepped over whenever it stands in the way of raw, unchecked power.”

He listed what he said was the evidence. “We see it everywhere. Violent acts of police brutality against defenseless citizens. A Speaker of the House removed in violation of due process. Lawmakers illegally expelled from the halls where the people’s voice is supposed to be heard. Court verdicts, the solemn rulings of our own judiciary, ignored and discarded the moment they become inconvenient.”

Of the Legislature, where his party holds a majority in both chambers, Weah said: “The Legislature no longer makes laws for the people. It takes its marching orders directly from the Executive Mansion, reduced to a rubber stamp for one man’s ambitions.”

On the economy, he said the Unity Party had inverted its own campaign promises. “They promised rescue. They promised transformation. They promised prosperity. Instead, families are struggling to eat, businesses are collapsing under the weight of a bad economy and high taxes, and the Liberian people’s confidence in their own institutions has been broken.”

Thursday’s statement was the most explicit Weah has made, but not the first signal. He told a party anniversary rally in Zwedru on June 27 that the road to 2029 began that day, and former Foreign Minister Lewis Brown’s successor at the party’s helm of external messaging, along with senior CDC figures, spent much of June rejecting reports that he had abandoned the race. Weah had earlier cited his age, noting he would be 63 at the next election, before reversing that position.

He told supporters to begin organizing immediately.

“Let the message leave here today. Let it travel across every country, every county, every district, every town, every village. The mighty CDC is coming back,” he said. “Wherever you are, whatever your circumstances, know this: I am with you. I hear you. And together we will finish what we have started. We will retain our democracy. We will restore our institution. We will rebuild our beloved Liberia bigger, stronger, and more united than ever before.”

Weah said he would build a broad opposition coalition and would welcome members of other parties who believe the government has failed to deliver on its 2023 commitments, describing the effort as one of national renewal rather than political revenge.

Weah lost the November 2023 runoff to Boakai and conceded, a concession widely credited with holding the transition together.