Liberians vote for first leader since civil war
Liberian voters waited in snaking queues at churches, schools and empty, long-shuttered bank buildings, hoping presidential balloting would mark an end to a quarter century of coups, despotic rule and fighting that killed tens of thousands.
The heavy turnout yesterday was a sign of the burden of expectation placed on the voting.
Vying for the West African nation’s top job are 22 candidates - including former international soccer phenomenon George Weah, Harvard-educated politician Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf and two ex-rebel leaders.
“I’m voting for a better life, a better leader that can bring peace,” said Willie Miller. “Years ago, the country was good … it was beautiful. Now we’re bad off, barely able to feed ourselves.”
Founded by freed American slaves in the mid-1800s, Africa’s first republic was once among its richest countries, with vast fields of gems an valuable groves of hardwood trees and rubber plants.
It has known little but strife since a first coup in 1980.
Years of war ended in 2003 after warlord-turned-president Charles Taylor stepped down amid a rebel invasion of the capital. A transitional government led by Gyude Bryant has ruled the country since.
After years of war that killed 200,000 people, hundreds of thousands of refugees still live in relief camps or squat in buildings abandoned by the government. Leaders have offered the people little, but corrupt, governance for decades.
A post-war calm is guarded by 15,000 UN peacekeepers, who were out in stronger-than-usual force yesterday on foot and in tanks in the potholed streets of the capital, Monrovia. White UN helicopters circled overhead.
The voting, though, was peaceful. Many voters sat on benches they brought with them in anticipation of a long wait or huddled under umbrellas to shelter from alternating periods of rain and pounding tropical sunshine. Voting stations were lit by battery-powered lamps.
A candidate must gain more than 50% of the ballots cast yesterday to avoid a run-off with the runner-up.
Results must be posted within 15 days, although a final tally is expected earlier. A second round, if necessary, would be held in early November.
The top US official for Africa hailed yesterday’s election. But Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer added: “This is a beginning, not an end point.”
In a radio address yesterday, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan called the elections the opening of “a new chapter in the history of Liberia”.
The winner of yesterday’s vote must attract foreign investors, jump-start the economy and knit together a society riven by a conflict typified by the murders and rapes of civilians by crack-smoking fighters clad in wigs and women’s’ ball gowns to frighten foes.
