Diplomats and civil society activists fear the second round of voting in Liberia’s first elections since the end of the civil war will spark a flurry of behind-the-scenes deal-making that could compromise the new government.
The National Electoral Commission announced that former football star George Weah and ex-World Bank official Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf will face off for the presidency on November 8.
A peace deal in 2003 pushed warlord-turned-president Charles Taylor into exile and set the date for the current elections, stipulating a second round if no candidate received more than 50% of the vote.
”There are backroom negotiations going on and it depends on who will offer the best,” confirmed Kofi Woods, a leading civil rights activist. ”It could also undermine the government’s ability to perform because people may not be appointed on merit but on negotiations and deals.”
Former United Nations diplomat Winston Tubman, who came fourth, confirmed the two leading parties had already approached him.
Third-placed Charles Brumskine is contesting the results, alleging ”serious irregularities bordering on fraud”. Most officials, however, doubt he will succeed.
The government’s preferred candidate, Varney Sherman, languished in fifth place, having barely polled more presidential votes than some senators. A long-standing enmity between Sherman and Johnson-Sirleaf makes an alliance unlikely.
However, one top UN official worried: ”People are so focused on the presidency that they have forgotten the real power lies in the legislature.”
Sherman’s party has the most seats in the 30-member Senate and the third most in the 64-member House of Representatives, thus increasing his bargaining power. An alliance between Weah, Brumskine and Sherman would give them control of the House of Representatives and leave them needing only two seats in the Senate for a majority.
Many politicians with close ties to Taylor, currently under 17 indictments for crimes against humanity by an UN-backed special court, will also be sitting in the legislature. His wife, Jewel Howard-Taylor, and his old general, Adolphus ”Peanut Butter” Dolo, have both won seats in the Senate.
Former fighter Kai Farley and ex-son-in-law Edwin Snowe, both under a UN travel ban, will be sitting in the House of Representatives. Taylor’s old party, the National Patriotic Party (NPP), commands the second largest voting bloc in the Senate and four seats in the House.
In a recent interview at her Monrovia mansion, Howard-Taylor claimed that many independent candidates are also allied to the NPP, and promised to try to block any attempts to bring her husband to court. ”We have to forgive and move on … Sometimes I laugh when people talk about the good and the bad people. Everyone was involved in this war.” Taylor is currently living in luxurious exile, but his Nigerian hosts have promised to extradite him if requested to do so by a new Liberian government.
However, with many allies in the legislature, it seems unlikely that he will have to leave his coastal mansion any time soon.