Liberia elects the first female president in Africa

[Spiffor]

From the BBC:

Africa to get first female leader
Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf is to be sworn in as Liberia's president, to become Africa's first elected female leader.

Senior figures from Africa and around the world will attend the inauguration ceremony in the capital, Monrovia.

Mrs Johnson-Sirleaf told supporters she wanted to restore hope after 14 years of civil war. She says law and order is the main challenge facing the nation.

UN peacekeepers and Liberian police have stepped up security in and around Monrovia ahead of the ceremony.

About 500 UN troops have been redeployed to the area and more police officers will be on the capital's streets.

Two US Navy warships are stationed off Liberia's coast, in a show of support for Mrs Johnson-Sirleaf's presidency.

I am excited by the potential of what I represent - the aspirations and expectations of women in Liberia, African women and women all over the world
Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf

They will also protect US First Lady Laura Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who are among those expected to attend.

Other guests include Presidents Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal, John Kufuor of Ghana, Laurent Gbagbo of Ivory Coast and the Chinese foreign minister.

Thousands of volunteers have been repainting buildings, bridges and road signs and clearing rubbish from Monrovia's streets in readiness.

The swearing-in ceremony will make Mrs Johnson-Sirleaf Liberia's first elected head of state since the end of 14 years of war in 2003.

The 67-year-old grandmother won 59% of the vote in November's run-off election, beating Liberian football star George Weah.

Huge challenges

Speaking on the eve of her inauguration, she vowed to restore hope to her country's people and give its children back their youth and future.

"I am excited by the potential of what I represent - the aspirations and expectations of women in Liberia, African women and women all over the world," said the Unity Party leader.

"I am also humbled, humbled by the enormity of the challenge we face."

A former World Bank economist and veteran politician, Mrs Johnson-Sirleaf is nicknamed the Iron Lady but has promised to show a new, softer side as president.

The challenges which lie ahead as she begins her six-year term are great.

After a quarter of a century of war and misrule, Liberia's road network is in ruins, there is no national telephone network, no national electricity grid and no piped water.

Mrs Johnson-Sirleaf has also pledged to fight widespread corruption.

A further challenge is to reintegrate the 100,000 ex-combatants, including many former child soldiers, into civilian life.

It's good to see elections finally taking place in Liberia. Besides, considering that the winner is a seasoned politician, maybe she'll accept the rules of democracy more than other potential leaders, and maybe she'll also restore a stability that Liberia dramatically needs.

Another good thing is that Weah seems to have accepted his defeat. According to Jeune Afrique l'Intelligent, he gave up on his recaurse for electoral fraud

[Fake Boris]

Damn... at first I read "Libya".

[Spiffor]

A BBC article (slightly older) that explains what challenges lie ahead:

Challenges for Liberia's leader
BBC World Affairs correspondent Mark Doyle, who was in Liberia for the post-war United Nations-backed elections, gives this analysis of the difficulties ahead for Africa's first elected woman president.

To get a measure of the challenges facing the President-elect of Liberia, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, who has just been declared the winner of Liberian elections, you need look no further than the official residence of the Head of State, currently occupied by the outgoing interim leader.

By international standards it is a modest, even rather scruffy ocean-front house behind high walls. If it were in, say, Nigeria or almost any other African state, you would think it belonged to a medium-level trader or a local politician.

In Monrovia, the only thing that obviously singles the place out as the official presidential residence is the presence at the gates of black-suited Liberian security men and United Nations peacekeepers.

The road leading to the residence is potholed. Within spitting distance of the gates, there are rough shanty homes made of tin roofing sheets and clapboard.

Children who should be at school carry water up and down the road in plastic jerry cans, and, within sight of the residence, there are piles of rotting rubbish.

Crumbling infrastructure and a lack of running water are of course endemic in Africa. But it is a measure of Liberia's plight that even the head of state lives so near to such squalor.

The problems facing Liberia's incoming president do not include a lack of resources.

Resource-rich

A relatively small country with a population of just three million, Liberia has the potential to be a middle income country. Its land is criss-crossed by rivers watering fertile soil that supports rubber, palm oil and tropical fruit plantations.

It has some of the richest timber resources anywhere in Africa; mountains bearing some of the world's highest quality iron ore; and significant deposits of diamonds and gold.

But Liberia's resources have never been rationally exploited.

Shortly after the country became Africa's first modern republic in 1848, when it was settled by freed slaves from the United States, huge plantations were marked out by the black settlers and foreign investors.

Paying little attention to the needs of the indigenous population, these farms and plantations made a few people very rich but dispossessed many more.

Divisions

Widespread resentment built up between the black colonialists, who had formed a sort of elite oligarchy in the capital, and their impoverished indigenous black cousins in the rural areas.

That resentment exploded in 1980 when a young army Master Sergeant, an indigenous Liberian, Samuel Doe, seized power in a bloody coup d'etat.

The country has been suffering the consequences ever since. Liberia descended into a cycle of coup and counter coup, war and repression.

This conflict favoured the worst sort of buccaneer business practices and simple criminality across the country - illegal logging, illegal mining and straightforward stealing from government ministries became commonplace. At a lower level, petty thieving was rife.

The cycle of instability was only interrupted two years ago when the United Nations began deploying a large peacekeeping force to police a peace agreement which was made possible by the departure for exile - under pressure from the United States - of the pre-eminent warlord for almost a decade, Charles Taylor.

Corruption

But while the UN - which still has the biggest guns in town - can keep the peace, Mrs Johnson-Sirleaf will have to tackle the corruption.

This will be far from easy because it has permeated political as well as business circles.

An energetic 67-year-old grandmother, Mrs Johnson-Sirleaf has excellent international credentials. Trained as an economist at the prestigious Harvard University in the US, she has worked as an international banker and as a manager for the United Nations.

She is not tainted by the corruption allegations that follow most Liberian politicians.

But while Mrs Johnson Sirleaf will have no trouble holding her own with fellow presidents and international diplomats, the domestic political challenge she faces is perhaps more significant.

Bridges

The first political bridge that has to be built is with her opponent in the run-off race, the retired soccer star George Weah.

She has said she will offer him a job in her new administration; whether he will accept, while he continues to make allegations of ballot rigging against his campaign, is not yet clear.

There will be plenty of other domestic challenges as Mrs Johnson-Sirleaf tries to implement economic policies designed to boost employment, increase educational provision and build basic clinics and hospitals.

The biggest problem is probably unemployment. Currently, hundreds of thousands of young men are condemned to scratching a living by petty trading or day-labouring.

Historically, this has made them easy prey to be manipulated by warlords or dishonest politicians.

The vested interests of many powerful Liberians would be challenged by honest government. If that's what Ellen Johnson Sirleaf intends to introduce, she has a bumpy ride ahead.

[Agathon]

Is she hot?

[Spiffor]

[Gangerolf]

first sikh president in africa

[Winston]

Maybe she's kind to animals.

[Spiffor]

Well, she has no beard...

[Sandman]

Sounds like Liberia has a clean slate to start again. Lets hope they don't blow it on impractical neoliberal policies.

[BeBMan]

First Merkel, now this. I'm afraid we guys are losing

[Saras]

Originally posted by Sandman
Sounds like Liberia has a clean slate to start again. Lets hope they don't blow it on impractical neoliberal policies.

Being the Randian libertarian freak that I am, I'd be fine with a welfare state there if only she managed to :

1. Leave after her a functioning court system;
2. Have proper enforcement of contracts;
3. Vigorously protected private property rights;
4. Lowered violent crime and corruption.

Things should sort themselves out pretty quickly if these are in place.

[Arrian]

I want that dude standing behind her on the left (her right) to be my minion. Walk around with me, doing my bidding. That's one hardcore lookin' MFer.

-Arrian

[alva]

Why? What is it exactly that you want me to do, Arrian?

[Arrian]

Just stand there and look like a badass mutha.

-Arrian

[Fake Boris]

When the world is run by corrupt women instead of corrupt men, we'll have traded four quarters for a buck. Progress