Liberia’s outgoing president has been expelled from her own party, for allegedly failing to support its candidate to succeed her.
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is accused of encouraging people to vote against her vice-president, Joseph Boakai.
Former footballer George Weah won the presidential elections in December, defeating Mr Boakai.
Ms Sirleaf, who is a Nobel Peace Prize winner and Africa’s first elected woman president, could not stand again.
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A spokesman for the governing Unity Party said Ms Sirleaf had violated the party’s constitution as she was seen campaigning with Mr Weah, who was running under the Coalition for Democratic Change banner.
Ms Sirleaf has not yet commented.
Mr Weah will be sworn in later this month. It will be the first smooth transfer of power since 1944 in Liberia, which was founded by freed US slaves in the 19th Century.
Ms Sirleaf gained popularity at home and abroad for helping to bring stability to her country after years of civil war.
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has served as the 24th and current President of Liberia since 16 January 2006. Sirleaf is the first elected female head of state in Africa.
Sirleaf was born in Monrovia to a Gola father and Kru-German mother.
She was educated at the College of West Africa before moving to the United States, where she studied at Madison Business College and Harvard University.
She returned to Liberia to work in William Tolbert’s government as Deputy Minister of Finance from 1971 to 1974 and later went to work for the World in the Carribean and Latin America.
Sirleaf returned to work for the late president Tolbert’s government again as deputy minister of Finance before being promoted to the post of Minister of Finance from 1979 to 1980.
After Samuel Doe seized power in a coup d’état and executed Tolbert, Sirleaf fled to the United States. She worked for Citibank and then the Equator Bank before returning to Liberia to contest a senatorial seat for Montserrado county in the disputed 1985 elections.
After returning to Liberia, Sirleaf ran for office, and finished in second place at the 1997 presidential election won by Charles Taylor.
She won the 2005 presidential election and took office on 16 January 2006. She was re-elected in 2011.
In June 2016, she was elected as the Chair of the Economic Community of West African States, making her the first woman to hold the position since it was created.
In 2011, Sirleaf was jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize with Leymah Gbowee of Liberia and Tawakkol Karman of Yemen.
The three women were recognized “for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women’s rights to full participation in peace-building work.”
Sirleaf was conferred the Indira Gandhi Prize by Indian President Pranab Mukherjee on 12 September 2013.
As of 2016, she is listed as the 83rd-most powerful woman in the world by Forbes magazine.
