Candidates launched election campaigns on Monday for Liberia's first postwar presidential election slated for October.

Former FIFA World Player of the Year George Weah, opposition leader Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, former ruling party leader Roland Massaquoi and former anti-government armed group leader Sekou Conneh are among the 22 candidates approved by the National Electoral Committee.

According to the electoral committee, 1.3 million of the Western African country's 3 million population have registered to vote in the Oct. 11 presidential election, the first of its kind since the 14-year-old civil war ended two years ago.

The new president is expected to take office in January 2006.

In August 2003, then Liberian President Charles Taylor resigned and was forced into exile in Nigeria. Two months later, two major anti-government armed groups reached agreement in Ghana's capital of Accra on forming an interim administration and hold presidential elections in October 2005.

The United Nations has deployed a 15,000-strong peacekeeping force in Liberia to oversee the peace process since September 2003.

(Xinhua News Agency August 16, 2005)