Oct 11, 05:59 PM
Elections in Liberia; a time for hope
In a political rally Sunday in Monrovia, Liberia, citizens backing international soccer star turned presidential candidate George Weah (pronounced WAY-ah) offered an interesting chant of support, the NY Times reports:
“Did he kill your ma? No!
“Did he kill your pa? No!
“Vote for George Weah!”
Citizens of Liberia vote for a new president and parliament today. The rest of the world needs to support the process and encourage whoever is elected to remain committed to peace and democracy. The nightmare that this country has experienced for the last two decades must finally come to an end.
A series of senseless civil wars from 1989 to 2003 killed 200,000 Liberians and the mayhem and bloodshed spilled into surrounding countries. The fighting was marked by the use of young boys as soldiers who carried out inhuman atrocities against civilians.
Finally, two years ago, a peace was established, and the country has since been run by a temporary government supported by a UN peace-keeping force.
The BBC reports that Liberia remained calm and orderly as polls opened today, capping a peaceful election run-up. But the real test will come when some candidates must accept defeat.
After two decades of on-off war, the people of Liberia have been relaxing in public and enjoying themselves freely at exuberant election rallies.
Speaking to the BBC News website from the village of Sinje on the eve of the poll, Chief Momo Freeman said he remained concerned.
“I will not be happy until I know the results of the vote. All the 22 candidates want to win and they have supporters. The losers might cause trouble.”
Apart from Weah (who played on top soccer teams in Europe), the other main candidate is Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, a Harvard-educated economist who has worked for the UN and the World Bank.
The BBC mentions that Sirleaf would become Africa’s first elected female head of state, and that her supporters have sported T-shirts stating “Ellen is our man,” in what the reporter describes as an attitude of “mocking Liberia’s patriarchal society.”
Bonus #1
Worth checking out is a BBC feature in which a reporter set up a laptop yesterday in Sinje village and posed questions that came in from BBC Web site readers to villagers who stopped by.
Bonus #2
In case my fellow Americans need a further reason to care about the elections in Liberia, please be reminded that the United States helped to found Liberia with freed slaves in the 19th century, and that, under Ronald Reagan, America supported Liberian dictator Samuel Doe as he established increasingly anti-democratic laws in the 1980s. It is not as though the troubles in this country have nothing to do with us.
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