Liberians vote in historic presidential election

Violence from Liberia’s war spilled across borders, and today the west African nation held its first presidential elections since fighting ended.

Liberians and their neighbours were hoping peace would now spread across the region.

At one polling station, voters started lining up at 2am, six hours before polls opened.

“We need a president who can provide for our needs. Look around, we have no electrical current, no clean drinking water, no health clinics,” said 42-year-old civil servant Joseph Parhmilnee.

“We need an uncorrupt president and no more war. We need development: airports, seaports, technology.”

Twenty-two candidates are vying for the top job in Liberia, in tatters after 14 years of nearly continuous civil war that ended with a peace deal in August 2003. A transitional government has arranged the vote and 15,000 UN peacekeepers are keeping the calm.

The vote “is extremely important, not just for the people of Liberia, but for all of the sub-region and the continent”, said Nicephore Soglo, former president of the west African nation of Benin and co-head of an election observers mission with former US President Jimmy Carter.

Candidates are promising to keep the peace, while rebuilding government-run water and electricity plants and creating jobs in a country where less than a quarter of the population is employed.

While no polling data exist, many believe the front-runner is former international soccer phenomenon George Weah, 40, whose rise from a Monrovia slum to soccer stardom has captivated much of Liberia’s youth – including many among the 100,000 demobilised fighters who raped, pillaged and murdered during the civil war.

But Weah’s critics say he has neither the education nor the management experience to govern Liberia’s three million people.

Also drawing large crowds at rallies is Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, a Harvard-educated 66-year old veteran of Liberia’s often-deadly politics.

With a long history of work as a government minister and with overseas banks and international organisations, Johnson-Sirleaf is hailed by many as an astute administrator.

Her detractors say she’s part of a political class that has only led to Liberia’s ruination and needs to be swept aside. If voted into office, her campaign says she would become Africa’s first elected female president.

Also running are two former warlords and a host of other local businessmen and lawyers.

Some 400 international observers and 900 local monitors are fanning out across Liberia for today’s vote. The US ambassador to Liberia and human-rights workers said the country was on track for free and fair elections after a two-month campaign marked by calm.

Carter, a seasoned election monitor, hailed Liberians’ dedication to non-violence and democratic ideals yesterday.

“We see the intense commitment of the Liberian people to have an honest, fair, open and safe election,” said Carter, heading up a team of dozens of election observers from his Carter Centre and the National Democratic Institute, another US group.

Liberians will also select 30 senators and 64 representatives – a system modelled on that of the United States, from where freed slaves were resettled before they founded Africa’s oldest republic in 1847.

Some 1.3 million Liberians have registered to vote at more than 3,000 polling stations.

A candidate must gain more than 50 percent of the ballots lodged today to avoid a runoff 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.

Liberia tumbled into civil war in 1989 when ex-President Charles Taylor, then a warlord, launched his insurgency. Taylor won elections during an interlude in fighting in 1997. Like his predecessors, he’s accused of looting the government coffers.

Another rebellion, including many former Taylor allies, broke out in 2000 and insurrectionist fighters besieged the capital, Monrovia, in 2003. Under heavy international pressure, Taylor stepped down and left the country, and a peace deal was quickly signed.

Taylor, accused of war crimes by a UN-backed tribunal in neighbouring Sierra Leone for his role in that country’s decade-long civil war, now lives in exile in Nigeria, which played a leading role in brokering Liberia’s peace.