On the potholed and bullet-scarred streets of Liberia, a former world footballer-of-the-year is trying to beat a 66-year-old politician at her own game. Next Tuesday, ex-Chelsea and AC Milan player, high-school drop-out George Weah will go head-to-head with Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, a grandmother with a Harvard degree, in the presidential run-off in this war-ravaged West African country.
Team Weah has been boosted by the endorsement of two of Liberia’s educated elite, Winston Tubman and Varney Sherman, who finished fourth and fifth respectively in last month’s presidential race.
“I am your destiny, I have Liberia in my heart,” Weah tells the crowds of fanatical young supporters who mob his armoured Humvee everywhere it goes. His reputation as a man of integrity with a glamorous rags-to-riches story resonates with many desperately poor Liberians, who suffered under a corrupt elite for decades.
But at a rally this week Sirleaf’s supporters insisted that she is the only candidate with the international clout to pull in the investment to rebuild. Sirleaf rounded on her rival for shunning a live public debate. “How does Mr Weah expect to communicate his vision and agenda to international partners … if he cannot talk to his nation.”
If elected, she would be the first female president in Africa, ruling a country where attacks on women are so common that billboards implore “Don’t rape women: They might have Aids”.
Liberia’s citizens hope that their new government will finally bring development to a country that has had no running water or electricity for more than a decade. But while the first round of elections, held on October 11, passed without a problem, the transitional government has quietly been trying to pass a Bill giving themselves the right to millions of dollars’ worth of government property.
Some of the theft is as simple as fitting shiny new government jeeps with false plates. A quick check on the registration of one white Laredo, the type purchased for government ministers, revealed the plates belonged to an old sedan owned by Benoni Urey, the former commissioner for maritime affairs. A close associate of the exiled former president, Charles Taylor, Urey was accused of embezzlement and gun-running by the United Nations and his assets were frozen in Liberia, a decision later overturned by the Supreme Court.
Endemic corruption was one of the key causes of the civil war. Taylor used bribes from business to fund his militias. Eventually, he was pushed into exile by a 2003 peace agreement. He has since been indicted by a UN-backed special court on 17 counts of crimes against humanity, but hopes of bringing him to justice receded after many of his main allies were elected to public office last month.
During a recent interview, Jewel Taylor defended her husband. Under the benign gaze of a signed photo of herself and Hillary Clinton in the White House, she said: “We have to forgive and move on.” Both Weah and Sirleaf are reluctant to take on the Taylor machine. At a recent press conference, Sirleaf stressed her opposition to a war crimes tribunal in Liberia.