Hopes high as Liberians flock to the polls

LIBERIAN voters waited in snaking queues, hoping yesterday’s presidential balloting would mark an end to a quarter century of coups, despotic rule and fighting that killed tens of thousands.

The heavy turnout - some voters arrived hours before polling began - 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 football 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 and 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 camps or squat in buildings abandoned by the government. Leaders have offered the people little but venal, corrupt governance for decades.

A nascent, post-war calm is guarded by 15,000 UN peacekeepers, 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, however, 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 tropical sunshine. Voting stations were lit by battery-powered lamps.

A candidate must gain over 50% of the ballots lodged today 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 needed, would be in November.

The top US official for Africa hailed the election. But Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Jendayi Frazer added: “This is a beginning, not an end point.”

In a radio address, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said it was the opening of “a new chapter in the history of Liberia”.

The winner of the 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.

Some 100,000 former combatants have been disarmed.

Training them with marketable skills and reintegrating them into society as useful members of a thriving economy is perhaps the greatest challenge facing Liberia.