Liberians vote again

MONROVIA – Liberians were yesterday choosing between a wealthy international soccer star and a Harvard-educated female politician vying for the country’s top job in a brains-versus-brawn presidential runoff that many hope will herald a new era after a quarter century of coups and war.

One-time FIFA player of the year George Weah and former Finance Minister Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf finished first and second, respectively, in the October 11 first round, which weeded out 20 other presidential candidates, including warlords and rebel leaders. Weah, with little formal education or experience in politics, is running on his popularity born from soccer stardom that has kept him untainted by the country’s bloody wars.Johnson-Sirleaf boasts a Harvard University education and has a resume full of top postings in government and the United Nations, but is handicapped by her association with past failed governments.”It’s going to be a tough battle,” said Liberian journalist Raymond Zarbay.”Whoever wins will have to take Liberia from where it is.Can either one do it? That’s the million-dollar question.”Lines began forming outside polling stations just before voting began.Founded by freed American slaves in the mid-1800s, Africa’s first republic was once among its most prosperous, bolstered by fields of diamonds and a vast ocean of tropical forests rich in hardwood timber and rubber.A coup in 1980, which saw Cabinet ministers stripped, tied to poles and shot on the beach, heralded a grim era of strife that ended in 2003 when warlord-turned-president Charles Taylor stepped down as advancing rebels shelled the capital.Despite the peace that came with the war’s end, little has improved.Burned-out, bullet-splattered buildings still dot the low skyline, along with others sprouting weeds that were never completed.The capital, where chaotic jumbles of power lines hang low across the streets, has no power mains, relying almost exclusively on generators, candles and lanterns.Monrovia’s only functioning traffic light functions no more.Unemployment is 80 per cent.- Nampa-APWeah, with little formal education or experience in politics, is running on his popularity born from soccer stardom that has kept him untainted by the country’s bloody wars.Johnson-Sirleaf boasts a Harvard University education and has a resume full of top postings in government and the United Nations, but is handicapped by her association with past failed governments.”It’s going to be a tough battle,” said Liberian journalist Raymond Zarbay.”Whoever wins will have to take Liberia from where it is.Can either one do it? That’s the million-dollar question.”Lines began forming outside polling stations just before voting began.Founded by freed American slaves in the mid-1800s, Africa’s first republic was once among its most prosperous, bolstered by fields of diamonds and a vast ocean of tropical forests rich in hardwood timber and rubber.A coup in 1980, which saw Cabinet ministers stripped, tied to poles and shot on the beach, heralded a grim era of strife that ended in 2003 when warlord-turned-president Charles Taylor stepped down as advancing rebels shelled the capital.Despite the peace that came with the war’s end, little has improved.Burned-out, bullet-splattered buildings still dot the low skyline, along with others sprouting weeds that were never completed.The capital, where chaotic jumbles of power lines hang low across the streets, has no power mains, relying almost exclusively on generators, candles and lanterns.Monrovia’s only functioning traffic light functions no more.Unemployment is 80 per cent.- Nampa-AP