"Woman vies for Liberian presidency"

Woman vies for Liberian presidency
By Jonathan Paye-Layleh
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published September 22, 2005

MONROVIA, Liberia - Canvassing for votes among a crowd of young men
who make their living washing cars, Liberia's most famous woman
wondered aloud why no females were among them. "Because this is a very
hard job," shouted one man. "Women are not able to do it."
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf's response was to wheel on a group of girls
watching from afar and deliver what could well be her campaign slogan:
"Women, don't sit there. Do something positive together with men."
Mrs. Johnson Sirleaf's resume runs from Harvard and the World Bank
to house arrest and exile by a military dictatorship. But at 66, she
soldiers on, running among 22 candidates for president in an Oct. 11
election that Liberia hopes will cement the peace after 14 years of
civil war.
Strong-willed, imperious and toughened by long exposure to
Liberia's violent politics, Mrs. Johnson Sirleaf is one of two female
candidates, but she's the only one with any real chance.
She hopes to put lessons learned as a World Bank and U.N. official
to work in a once-prosperous West African country founded by freed
American slaves and wrecked 150 years later by warlords and despots --
all male.
Elected women in high office are rare across Africa.
South African President Thabo Mbeki has a female deputy, Phumzile
Mlambo-Ngcuka. President Armando Guebuza of Mozambique appointed a
woman, Luisa Diogo, as his prime minister in February. Liberia briefly
had an unelected female president, Ruth Perry.
Most Liberian voters say the sex of the candidate matters little:
They'll vote for whoever can get electricity and water running again
and dent the 85 percent unemployment rate.
While stressing her management skills, Mrs. Johnson Sirleaf hopes
her sex will help her stand out.
"I have operated, succeeded and excelled in a men's world -- in
every area or profession that I have been in," she told AP in an
interview.
Her supporters call her "the Iron Lady," borrowing the nickname of
Margaret Thatcher. Mrs. Johnson Sirleaf includes the former British
prime minister among women who "have brought equal competence, strength
and courage to everything that they do."
No reliable opinion polls exist, but among those considered to be
Mrs. Johnson Sirleaf's main rivals are international soccer star George
Weah, who bills himself as the populist candidate, and Sekou Conneh,
whose rebel force besieged Monrovia in 2003 and helped drive former
President Charles Taylor into exile.
Mr. Weah learned his game in Monrovia's slums and booted himself to
world stardom with top European teams. He has little formal education
and says Liberia needs national unity rather than the finely honed
managerial skills offered by Mrs. Johnson Sirleaf, a full-fledged
member of Liberia's political elite.
Mrs. Johnson Sirleaf was a senior minister in the Cabinet ousted by
Master Sgt. Samuel Doe in a 1980 military coup. She was sentenced to
prison for treason, had her house ransacked and was driven into exile.
For many Liberians, her greatest drawback may be the brief support
she gave to Mr. Taylor in 1989. She saw his insurgency as the only way
to end Master Sgt. Doe's dictatorship.
Mr. Taylor's war killed tens of thousands -- some say as many as
200,000 or more -- and left Liberia in tatters. He won a 1997 election
in which Mrs. Johnson Sirleaf placed a distant second, but fled Liberia
a few years later. For the past two years, a caretaker administration
has run the country.
Many Liberians value Mrs. Johnson Sirleaf's devotion to the country
and her experience in development and international banking. Others
associate her with years of failed leadership.
"Mrs. Sirleaf, Taylor and others chose the path of war and
destruction as a way of addressing the political crisis that had
developed in Liberia," said Fatu Massaquoi, wearing a T-shirt
emblazoned with the face of a top Johnson Sirleaf rival.
"She can't boast of being a clean-handed person and the right one
to lead."
Mrs. Johnson Sirleaf said she would steer Liberia away from
violence.
"I am going to be a leader and a president who happens to be a
woman. But I am glad to be a woman because I think I will bring an
extra dimension to the task," said the widowed mother of four.
"That's the dimension of sensitivity, respect for human beings --
which is something that comes from motherhood."

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