Because she said in an interview and in some campaign speeches that she would only serve one term, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has been asked from day One in office if she would “keep” her word or stand for another term. In Monrovia and in the Liberian Diaspora, speculations are high. In May, a local newspaper published an article alluding to a breakfast meeting where a certain member of the First Family asked leaders of the ruling Unity Party to find a suitable candidate for the next elections. This was denied. FrontPageAfrica came up with an article on the same issue, lining up prospective candidates to the succession of President Sirleaf. As Liberians in the Diaspora celebrate weddings and graduations in the Diaspora, the same question “will she run again?” pops up everywhere.

One may wonder why the urgency, when the government has yet to reach mid-term? President Sirleaf was inaugurated in January 2006 for a six-year term; therefore she is not yet half-way into her term. There seems to be impatience in many quarters, turning the next elections and the stand Mrs. Sirleaf would take as an urgent matter. One may want to ask why the stress? Could it be that certain people have so dedicated their lives to becoming president of Liberia that they seem to have no other vision or ambition?

If the past elections were to be an indication, the sheer number of candidates at the presidency showed that “running for president” in Liberia is the most important political exercise that makes sense. There are those who see the presidency as an entitlement, the only position they could now occupy. There are also those who see running for president as a way to gain visibility and get a good job in the next government, because they can always “sell” the votes of their supporters to the highest bidder. Some Liberians in the political arena are coming to the realization that six years for a presidential term is very long. If Sirleaf were to run again and win, an entire political generation would be dead or out of energy to even cough by the time she concludes her second term., thus the panic and the urgency.

The speculations abound regarding who may run to take over from Sirleaf. In any government, especially in Africa and more so in the current transitional stage of Liberia, one can expect to have at least three sets of people: those who want to make a few bucks and retire, those who are using their position as a stepping stone to leap forward and a third group of those that are uniquely devoted to the agenda of the president. Speculating on the political ambitions of people while they are in the service of government and have yet to make public their intention is a dangerous game that could lead to unnecessary rifts in a team that is still trying to find some level of cohesiveness.

When candidate Sirleaf said she would only serve one term, she had a romanticized vision of her presidency and the environment she would step in. She thought the international community would heavily fund Liberia’s recovery process from day one. She expected that the hundreds of million of dollars of aid money would be at her disposal to carry out development programs according to her priorities. She expected Liberian professionals to rush back home and invest in the recovery process. She thought the exiled professionals who accepted to join her government would perform miracles. She thought she could transform the state bureaucracy over night, making it leaner and efficient and rid of corruption.

The realities for President Sirleaf turned out to be different. The international community, now operating on a single world-order, no longer gives money because big nations no longer need small cheerleading countries as was the case during the Cold War. The US, Liberia’s “mentor and spiritual ally”, provided what it could: leadership in getting Taylor out, leadership in creating and maintaining peace, leadership in debt relief, leadership in security sector reform and several minor infrastructural developments. One might now consider the viability of debt relief, because by promising to forgive Liberia’s debt under the HIPC conditions, the US clears itself of any obligation of giving cash. Notwithstanding the infatuation of the Bush White House with President Sirleaf and the attentive adulation of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the US never wrote a blank check to Liberia. President Bush spent eight hours in Monrovia, danced on the stage and sent a million books.

The US $600 million pledged by Liberia’s partners at the first Donor’s Conference in Washington, DC in 2007 was disbursed through NGOs and spent without any government oversight. In Berlin, in June 2008, the second Donor’s Conference netted less than $300 million. This amount shows the limits of international goodwill and could, to a certain extend, serve as a warning to the government as to how far it needs to go in implementing crucial reform policies. The conclusion is that the international community, including the US no longer bails out failing countries, except when strategically engaged. After two years of courting the international community to rekindle the image of Liberia, the government seems to face a serious challenge in finding a strategic way to engage donors and investors.

Liberian professional expatriates who joined the government performed differently. Most had been away from the country for twenty or more years. They had gotten used to function in systems that worked. Either at the UN, World Bank or other international organizations, these professional had acquired habits that could hardly measure up to the realities in Liberia. From being couriers or agents of implementation, they were entrusted with the responsibility of running failed institutions, dealing with issues such as deciding how much fuel to buy daily to keep light in their offices. They came back to a society that had changed dramatically. These professionals were not prepared for the magnitude of the task. In a way, they were like the young soldiers who took over power in 1980; they were not ready for the job of creating new structures. With age, many of the expatriates professionals that President Sirleaf brought back are far from the young forceful innovators and creative mavericks they once were in the 1970s. Nostalgia is hardly a positive building block. The time might have come to pass the torch.

Candidate Sirleaf often spoke of a lean and efficient government. However, the corrupt, inept and bloated government bureaucracy has almost remained intact, with three notable exceptions. At the Ministry of Defense, the US provided funding that allowed the restructuring and training not only of the army but also of the entire staff of the Ministry of Defense. At the General Auditing Commission, the European Union funded the same scheme where the entire staff was fired and re-recruited to undergo training. Harry Greaves at LPRC borrowed $1, 5 million from a private bank to restructure the workforce at LPRC. The Civil Service has done a tremendous job in eliminating tens of thousands of ghost names from the government payroll but it is still meeting resistance in many places in carrying out its work. Other than these and the new commissions that were created, the state bureaucracy is still bloated and inefficient.

President Sirleaf faces the same problems she encountered on Day One, the only difference now is she has lesser resources and the expectations are higher, making disillusionment and frustration among Liberians more palpable. If things continue to evolve at the same rate, President Sirleaf will have to run for a second term to implement policies that would lead to a clear legacy. She does not have to succeed herself and there is a line of succession in the party. Vice President Joseph Boakai is well capable of running a good campaign and winning if Sirleaf decides to go into early retirement. But will Liberia keep listening to the aging generation, especially if Unity Party fails to deliver on its promises of reform?

Liberia has just started the recovery process, something that may take decades to bear fruits. President Sirleaf is far from where she thought she would be in her third year, notwithstanding some relative success in peace building and in the areas of education and basic services.

President Sirleaf still has time to make those hard decisions she promised in her campaign. If progress continues at the current pace, she and the Unity Party will have no choice but to put her name forward to ensure full implementation of her social and economic program. Opponents and partisans might as well get used to the idea that Ma Ellen will be candidate again in 2011.

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© 2008 by The Perspective
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