Liberians hope vote-rigging claims don't spark violence

Liberians may have just elected Africa's first female head of state. But while Harvard-educated economist Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf claims victory, her opponent, international soccer star George Weah, is claiming the elections were fraudulent. With nearly 90 percent of votes from Tuesday's run-off counted, the National Election Commission (NEC) announcedlate Thursday that 59 percent of the vote was held by Ms. Johnson-Sirleaf, while Mr. Weah had 41 percent. But Weah's campaign has launched a formal fraud complaint. "We'll do everything to expedite the investigation into this complaint," said NEC chairwoman Frances Johnson Morris.

Liberia's peace is only two years old, and memories of the 14 years of astonishingly brutal civil war that preceded it are fresh. The resource-rich country is considered a failed state. And issues-based campaigning is nearly irrelevant. Both camps promise to restore the public electricity and water supplies destroyed in the early 1990s, to root out the corruption endemic in the transitional government currently in power, and to improve Liberia's 80 percent unemployment rate.


International observers, meanwhile, who were numerous and widespread throughout Liberia's nine counties, reported no major irregularities. The European Union observer head Max van den Berg called the voting "smooth," and National Democratic Institute (NDI) and Carter Center officials judged election day to have gone "peacefully and smoothly," with only minor irregularities. But these assessments may not mean much to Weah's supporters, a large percentage of whom are young ex-fighters.

Posted November 10, 2005 | Printer-friendly version
Liberians hope vote-rigging claims don't spark violence
Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf claims she has just become Africa's first female head of state, but her opponent alleges fraud.
By Rose George | Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor
MONROVIA, LIBERIA - Liberians may have just elected Africa's first female head of state. But while Harvard-educated economist Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf claims victory, her opponent, international soccer star George Weah, is claiming the elections were fraudulent.

With nearly 90 percent of votes from Tuesday's run-off counted, the National Election Commission (NEC) announcedlate Thursday that 59 percent of the vote was held by Ms. Johnson-Sirleaf, while Mr. Weah had 41 percent.

But Weah's campaign has launched a formal fraud complaint. "We'll do everything to expedite the investigation into this complaint," said NEC chairwoman Frances Johnson Morris.

As the elections commission looks into these claims, war-weary Liberians are hoping that any demonstrations sparked by the fraud allegations remain non-violent. Weah's Congress for Democratic Change (CDC) party says it is planning to host supporters from around the country for a meeting in Monrovia this weekend. The United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) is on full alert, and has doubled its presence in Monrovia, with Swedish and Irish contingents patrolling the streets.

The election was always going to be tricky. Liberia's peace is only two years old, and memories of the 14 years of astonishingly brutal civil war that preceded it are fresh. The resource-rich country is considered a failed state. And issues-based campaigning is nearly irrelevant. Both camps promise to restore the public electricity and water supplies destroyed in the early 1990s, to root out the corruption endemic in the transitional government currently in power, and to improve Liberia's 80 percent unemployment rate.

Instead, voters made their choices based on personalities easily slotted into press-friendly slogans: It was "brains versus brawn," in popular opinion, which compared the professional experience of former World Bank loan officer Johnson-Sirleaf, against the massive popularity of the world's most famous Liberian, a former World Player of the Year.

On Wednesday, when early results began to reveal a strong lead for Johnson-Sirleaf, Weah announced his camp had "substantial evidence of election fraud."

"The world is saying that this was a free and fair election," said the man known by most Liberians as King George, "which is not true."

International observers, meanwhile, who were numerous and widespread throughout Liberia's nine counties, reported no major irregularities. The European Union observer head Max van den Berg called the voting "smooth," and National Democratic Institute (NDI) and Carter Center officials judged election day to have gone "peacefully and smoothly," with only minor irregularities.

But these assessments may not mean much to Weah's supporters, a large percentage of whom are young ex-fighters.

As soon as Weah's comments were broadcast, youths watching television outside a store in downtown Monrovia began to get rowdy, causing businesses to close their doors early, and UN peacekeepers to step in to calm tempers.

"The period between elections and results can be volatile," said Christopher Fomunyoh, a co-leader of the joint NDI - Carter Center mission.

Even though Weah first publicly disputed the results over a week ago, in an interview with UNMIL radio, when he claimed he had won 62 percent of the first round (compared to his official tally of 28 percent), his aides are adamant that their leader is not stirring up trouble. "If he believes that, he has the right to say that," says Weah's media adviser Sam Steve Quoah. "But we are saying that all that is in the past. We won't dwell on it, but there is something very wrong with this election."

Further evidence of fraud would be forthcoming, Mr. Quoah promised, including election officers who had witnessed fraudulent activities. Despite the NDI and Carter Center clearly stating that their 28 observers had seen no ballot-stuffing, Weah's CDC campaign is still convinced they have a case.

"International observers are not there for the duration of the election," said Quoah. "They come and go, they have to visit lots of polling stations. They can't see everything. But we are not saying that the international community is colluding and conniving. We blame the NEC."

A large UN tank is now stationed outside the NEC. "We want to keep this peaceful," said CDC campaign chairman Jacob Kabakole.

"Our supporters are obviously not happy, and they're not going to be happy," says Quoah.

"A cheated man is an angry man. Someone is trying to hijack the elections, but we are following the rule of law," he says.

Whispers of demonstrations and marches abound in Liberia's fast-spinning rumor mill, but they are false, said Quoah. "If we march, we will do it legally. We will obtain a permit. George Weah is a man of peace, and he has appealed for calm."

So far Weah's supporters seem to agree.

At the Alpha Haitai Social and Athletic Club on Monrovia's Carey Street, games of scrabble and checkers had a background of lively political discussion that never crossed into anger.

"We are tired of war," said Melvin Toe, a physician's assistant and a committed Weah supporter. "We are tired of running helter skelter. If Weah tells us to remain calm, we will do that."

When asked what he would do if Weah tells supporters to riot, he said: "No way. We are peace-abiding."

Up on the Guthrie rubber plantation north of Monrovia, where some 5,000 ex-combatants from the LURD rebel forces have been living for over a year, the rhetoric was equally harmonious. Former rebel commander and now de-facto chief of Guthrie, Sumo Dennis, has made it clear to his men that they should support Weah, but that's as far as he'll go.

"If George loses, he loses, and that's that," he said in a sweltering hut with a posse of young, unemployed men looking on. "I've got no reason to fight any more, and I'm not going to."

Weah, meanwhile, promised supporters gathered at his party headquarters that problems would be resolved diplomatically, and "in the end you will be all be happy."

But Liberians more used to war than peace were still circumspect. "People are making sure they've got food in the house," says Edmond Dagbe, who hid under his bed for 3 weeks straight during fierce fighting in August 2003. "A bag of rice, some tinned food. You know, just in case."

http://www.csmonitor.com/earlyed/earlyWO1110a.html