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Inter Press Service
January 20,
2003
Summary:
Article that discusses the struggle for peace and
democracy in war-torn Liberia.
Liberia: Taylor Seeks Re-Election, Despite
Growing Opposition
By Abdullah Dukuly
January 30,
2003 MONROVIA - Defying the growing
opposition to his leadership, President Charles Taylor, who is under
UN and U.S. travel restrictions, is seeking a second four-year term
of office this year. To win the election, Taylor has vowed to
enforce the residency clause of the Liberian constitution,
disqualifying candidates who have not resided in the war-torn
country for 10 years. All serious candidates have fled the country
when Taylor assumed power in 1997. Liberia, founded by a group of
freed slaves in 1847, holds general elections on Oct 14. But
political analysts wonder whether the residency clause will affect
anybody since no potential candidate has stayed away for consecutive
10 years. In order to stop anybody from contesting, you must be
able to show that Mr. X left Liberia all by himself, did not care to
return, had his happy good lucky life abroad, and all of a sudden he
hears election year is coming. Then he bounces back on the scene to
say he wants to lead the nation when we were here suffering and
eating cassava (manioc),'' says Marcus Jones, a law professor.
Civil groups and Western diplomats have described the electoral
exercise as inadequate. The U.S. embassy in Monrovia says the
necessary conditions for election do not exist to permit free and
fair polls. The United States wants the government to seek UN
assistance. ''The United Nations has excellent capability and
experience in playing a key role in the upcoming election
across-the-board,'' says John W. Blaney, the U.S. Ambassador to
Liberia. Blaney says ''The American government is worried at the
prospects of severely limiting candidates desirous of contesting the
presidency''. Some exiled politicians, who fled the country in
1997, are returning home. Another contentious political debate is
the Liberian population. The country has not had a census for 20
years because of the continuing war that has displaced thousands of
people and killed more than 160,000 others. Towns and villages have
also been destroyed - in one of Africa's bloodiest civil wars rooted
in a scramble for power and wealth. The 1984 pre-war census put the
number of people in Liberia at 2.5 million. The absence of a latest
data on the country's population distribution pattern has prompted
ruling party officials to claim that Liberia now has 5 million
people. This unsubstantiated figure has raised eyebrows. ''How did
we become 5 million when we've been fighting a war, hundreds of
thousands of people have died and we're still fighting, killing one
another and many people have left the country?'' queries Jones, who
is also the president of the National Bar Association of Liberia.
So, he insists, a census is a must if Liberia is to have a credible
election''. The election is expected to resolve the long-running
political squabble that has dogged Liberia for decades. The dispute
resulted to a war, triggered by former warlord Charles Taylor
against the regime of slain dictator Samuel Doe. Taylor's
Libyan-trained guerrillas invaded Liberia from neighbouring Cote
d'Ivoire in December 1989. The war initially partitioned the
country, with Taylor running an administration in central Liberia as
opposed to a sub-regional creation of an interim government in the
capital Monrovia. The de facto division of the country into
different administrations with separate economic zones and two
separate local currencies with varying exchange rates aggravated an
already difficult and complex hardship, with shortages of foreign
currency and closure of some banks. To accommodate all potential
candidates, the 16-member Economic Community of West African States
(ECOWAS), which brokered peace in Liberia, designed a system of
proportional representation contrary to the old voting code
introduced at independence in 1847, bringing the entire country
under a single electoral district. Thirteen political parties
contested the 1997 election that was seen as the only alternative to
ending the war. Taylor's NPP won the poll with a large margin. Now
four years after the election, the condition that necessitated the
1997 election still persists. A new rebel group is fighting the
government in the north and insecurity mounts across the country,
making the nation-wide census and civic education impossible. The
Elections Commission hopes to rely on the credibility of voters'
registration process for the October elections, says chairperson
Paul Guah. Guah has pleaded with the international community to
provide funds for the election. Out of a proposed budget of 11
million U.S. dollars for the elections, president Taylor's
cash-starved government has provided 8.3 million U.S. dollars. The
development programmes of the country, still without running water
and electricity, are at standstill as international aid to the
government -- also under arms and economic sanctions -- is
far-fetched owing to its worsening rights records. Taylor and his
officials are facing travel restrictions by the UN and the United
States for their alleged engagement in gun-running and diamond
smuggling with rebels in neighbouring Sierra Leone, fuelling the war
in that country. |
