The embattled chairman of Liberia's National Elections Commission has resigned only a week before the country's presidential runoff vote.

Liberia's top opposition party had said it would boycott the 8 November election unless James Fromoyan stepped down. The party also wants the rest of the commission replaced and the first round results re-counted.

Fromoyan said Sunday that he hoped the opposition now would take part in the poll following his resignation.

The opposition has alleged that the electoral commission favors incumbent Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who is Africa's first democratically elected female leader.

Sirleaf, a Nobel Peace laureate, won the first round but failed to reach the threshold needed to avoid a runoff