Top > World > 2005 > November > 2005-11-13

Liberia votes for a better future

Liberia voted in a heated runoff election last Tuesday for its first post-war president in a vote that pitted a former soccer star who dropped out of high school against the country`s top female politician who was educated at Harvard. Many expressed hope that the vote would herald an era of peace after decades of conflict that displaced a third of the West African nation`s 3.5 million citizens and left up to 200,000 dead.

Founded by freed American slaves in the mid-1800s, Africa`s first republic was once among the continent`s most prosperous. A brutal coup in 1980 initiated years of strife that ended in 2003. Liberia today is a shambles with an unemployment rate of 80 percent. Alan Doss, the top U.N. envoy to Liberia, declared the vote "peaceful and transparent," though U.N. troops arrested five people for minor incidents.

In a first round of balloting on Oct. 11, George Weah, 39, the former soccer star, and Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, 66, a former finance minister, won 28 and 20 percent of the votes, respectively. Weah`s ascent from Monrovia`s slums to international soccer stardom has had great appeal in a poor country short on heroes. Johnson-Sirleaf boasts a master`s degree in public administration from Harvard. If successful, she would become Africa`s first elected female president.