President in Waiting Stays Cool in Liberia
Johnson-Sirleaf Unruffled by Fraud Claims

By Lane Hartill
Special to The Washington Post
Monday, November 14, 2005

MONROVIA, Liberia, Nov. 13 -- Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, the woman who is all but certain to become Liberia's next president and Africa's first elected female head of state, seems unfazed by her sudden fame and unruffled by her opponent's charges of fraud in last Tuesday's runoff election.

Dressed in eggshell-white jeans, the career economist and grandmother, 67, seems content to wait coolly at home for the National Elections Commission to certify the results, while a sister visiting from New York fields a barrage of phone calls.

Meanwhile, Johnson-Sirleaf is looking ahead to a presidency she says will help bring political unity and economic development to Liberia, a country battered by civil conflict for much of the past two decades.

"A national identity, something that everybody feels that brings them together -- we haven't had that," she said during a relaxed interview in her yard Saturday. "We've always been America's stepchild, never a truly African country," she added. "We've got to find the things that bind."

Johnson-Sirleaf said she was "shocked" that her opponent, former soccer star George Weah, had said the election was marred by fraud. With virtually all the ballots counted Saturday, she had 59.6 percent of the vote to Weah's 40.4 percent. Results were expected to be certified early this week.

On Friday, angry crowds of young men supporting Weah marched through the capital, Monrovia, surrounding the U.S. Embassy and chanting that the election had been rigged. The crowds threw stones but were dispersed by U.N. peacekeepers using tear gas and batons.

"The rest of the Liberian people are quiet," Johnson-Sirleaf said. "They've asked me to get on the streets so they can celebrate."

While Weah, 39, appealed to jobless young men and former militia fighters, Johnson-Sirleaf has said her candidacy benefited from the strong support of women, who made up slightly more than half of registered voters.

But Weah has charged that there were grave irregularities in the election and has demanded a revote. He has shown reporters ballots apparently pre-marked for Johnson-Sirleaf and made a formal complaint to the European Commission, which is part of a team that will investigate his claims.

The history of Liberia, which was settled by former American slaves in the early 1800s, has often been marred by disputed elections and subsequent political uprisings, and Johnson-Sirleaf could take office under a similar cloud.

"Weah could be making legitimate claims here," Thomas Jaye, a Liberian research fellow at Britain's Birmingham University, said in an e-mail. "If these claims are true . . . it means that even if Ellen was approved legally as leader, she would remain illegitimate in the eyes of the Liberian people."

Johnson-Sirleaf said the allegations had hurt her personally, but she blamed advisers to Weah, a political novice with a high school education.

"I don't think Mr. Weah himself understands the implications of what he's doing," she said. "But he's being fed these things and so he's repeating these things."

Despite Weah's accusations, Johnson-Sirleaf said that if certified as president, she would invite him to join her government, possibly as minister of youth and sports or as an ambassador.

Analysts said a more pressing problem for Johnson-Sirleaf would be how to deal with former warlords and disgruntled ex-combatants from the country's 14-year civil war, many of whom support Weah.

"Ellen needs to worry about the ex-fighters generally, but she will also need to be worried about the ex-generals in particular," Jaye said, adding that former fighters would remain loyal to their old commanders for a long time. "Ellen will need to provide a balance between pursuing justice and reconciliation," he said.

Johnson-Sirleaf said rehabilitating young former combatants was one of her top priorities. She said she intended to apply lessons learned by participants in U.N. programs in such countries as Sierra Leone, Rwanda and Mozambique, which successfully integrated opposition groups and rebels after bloody civil conflicts.

She also said she would take a personal approach to persuading former militia faction leaders not to take up arms again.

"I'm going to reach out to them . . . to assure them that I have absolutely nothing against them," she said in the interview. "They may not believe me at first, but I'll demonstrate it. . . . For some of them who have the requisite experience and education, I hope they'll accept some position in the government."

Even before her likely inauguration in January, Johnson-Sirleaf said, she wants to get a head start on a long list of urgent projects. Liberia has no electricity system, and she has promised to provide power to the capital within six months of taking office. She also wants to tackle land reform, which could require changing the constitution.

But some experts said even more profound changes are needed. Stephen Ellis, of the African Studies Center in Leiden in the Netherlands, said Johnson-Sirleaf -- and Liberians -- need to fundamentally rethink how their government operates.

"If you look back in Liberian history, there is no period of decent government," Ellis said. "It needs to be substantially reinvented. That's going to be a long process."

Johnson-Sirleaf said she was already making plans. In December, she said, she plans to hold a national conference, open to the public, to discuss issues including land reform, decentralization of power and the broader question of national identity.