wfn.org | [UMNS-ALL-NEWS] UMNS# 447-United Methodist is likely frontrunner in

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.ORG>]

United Methodist is likely frontrunner in Liberia's presidential race

Aug. 11, 2005

NOTE: Photographs and related features - UMNS stories #442 and #448 -
are available at http://umns.umc.org.

By Dean Snyder and Jane Malone*

MONROVIA, Liberia (UMNS) - It is likely a United Methodist will become
the first woman elected president of Liberia, according to interviews
with faculty members and students at Liberia's United Methodist
University.

University faculty members and students identified Ellen Johnson
Sirleaf, formerly an official with the United Nations, the World Bank
and Liberia's finance agency, as the frontrunner in Liberia's
presidential race during impromptu conversations and interviews. The
faculty members interviewed included, among others, a political
scientist, a theologian, and the university president.

Johnson Sirleaf is a "very strong, very focused leader," said university
President J. Oliver Duncan. Many Liberians "are dreaming of bringing
forth the first woman president of Liberia," he said.

Johnson Sirleaf, an active member of First United Methodist Church of
Monrovia, is one of more than 50 aspirants who have announced their
intention to run for the nation's highest office. Some will run as
nominees of Liberia's 30 political parties; others may run as
independents. Campaigning officially begins Aug. 11. The election will
be Oct. 11.

The Rev. Julius Sarwolo Nelson Jr., dean of the university's Gbarnga
School of Theology, said only five or six of the many contenders will
turn out to be viable candidates. He predicted that during the final
weeks of the campaign, the number of candidates who have a chance of
winning will drop to two or three. Johnson Sirleaf will run as "the
standard bearer" - a term commonly used in Liberia for presidential
candidates nominated by political parties - of the recently formed Unity
Party.

Support for Johnson Sirleaf's candidacy at Unity Party conventions -
similar to state-level party primaries in the United States - has been
enthusiastic, observers said.

"Ellen is a capable person; she is educated," said Blessing Harris, a
political scientist on the university faculty. "She has had experience
working in government in Liberia, and she has worked in the U.N. for
quite a while."

But Harris warned that the campaign could include some surprises.
Because many of Liberia's schools could not function during the
country's 14-year civil war that ended in 2003, the literacy rate in the
nation is low, Harris said. Some studies cited by university faculty
suggest that only two out of 10 Liberians are literate, a drastic drop
from pre-civil-war levels. Harris was not sure the same qualities in
candidates that are admired by more educated voters will win the votes
of less literate Liberians.

Harris also wondered whether Liberia's young adults might be attracted
by the candidacy of soccer superstar George Weah, who has returned to
Liberia to be the nominee of the Congress for Democratic Change Party.
Weah recently transferred his membership from First United Methodist
Church of Monrovia to George Patten United Methodist Church, a growing,
youth-oriented congregation in Monrovia's market area.

Wyeatta Moore, a young adult studying sociology at United Methodist
University, agreed that young adults, especially young men, are drawn to
Weah because he is a sports hero. But, she said, in a nation where many
feel leaders have been corrupt, some young adults look to Weah as an
alternative to "business as usual" in Liberian politics.

"They don't see him as a regular politician," Moore said. "He is the one
who is the outsider who is not looking for money because he is already
rich."


Young adults, ages 18 to 30, make up half of Liberia's 1.3 million
registered voters and are expected to have a significant impact on the
election.

Moore believes most young women will vote for Johnson Sirleaf.
"Everybody is saying it is time for a woman president," she said. More
than 50 percent of those registered to vote in the October election are
women, she added.

Ambassador T. Ernest Eastman, dean of the university's College of
Liberal and Fine Arts, said he was impressed by the response to Johnson
Sirleaf's Unity Party, but he was also cautious. "No one wants to bet
completely on her, but she may emerge as the central candidate," the
former Liberian secretary of state said. "We don't know how the election
will go until the campaign."

The professors said perceptions about the ethnic and religious
affiliations of presidential aspirants, and their vice-presidential
candidates yet to be named, will also affect the campaign. Most
candidates are Christians from Monrovia, Liberia's largest urban center,
yet many Liberians in rural counties are suspicious of urban and
Christian people. They identify more with tribal affiliations and
non-Christian traditions.

Though she is urban and Christian, Johnson Sirleaf appeals to some rural
voters because she is a descendant of a powerful rural tribe and the
widow of a Muslim man, the professors said. Eastman and Nelson
emphasized that the results of the campaign will be influenced by each
aspirant's ability to select running mates able to reach out to rural
and tribal voters outside Monrovia.

During a brief interview, Johnson Sirleaf said she is optimistic.

"We do not have as many financial resources as some other parties," she
said, "but I am reassuring the people that the money we are spending is
money that has been earned honestly. I tell them we have not mortgaged
Liberia's future by taking money with strings attached, and people seem
to be responding to this message."

According to university faculty members, in addition to Johnson Sirleaf
and Weah, others expected to be strong presidential candidates include:

"	Varney Sherman, nominee of the Liberian Action Party, the party
currently in control of Liberia's interim government.

"	Togba Nah Tipoteh, an economist and founder of the popular
social change organization Justice in Africa, who will run as the
nominee of the Liberia People's Party. Tipoteh is also a United
Methodist.

"	Winston Tubman, nominee of the National Democratic Party of
Liberia, the party established by former President Samuel Doe. Tubman is
a former U.N. secretary general representative to Somalia, and the
nephew of the late President William V. S. Tubman. The Tubman family has
historically been strongly identified with the United Methodist Church.

"	Charles Brumskine, the nominee of the Liberty Party, a lawyer
who once was close to exiled President Charles Taylor but who left the
Taylor government and fled to the United States due to philosophical
differences. He attends a nondenominational church, although his father
was a highly respected district superintendent in the United Methodist
Church's Liberia Annual Conference.

"	Roland Massaquoi, secretary of agriculture in Taylor's
administration, the candidate of Taylor's National Patriotic Party.

Faculty and students agreed that, no matter who wins the election, the
new president faces daunting challenges. The war-torn country has been
without centralized electricity and operable water and sewage systems
for 15 years, and highways are in disrepair. The rural population fled
to the city to escape the rebels and lost their farming equipment to
looters, so agricultural production is limited and the cities are
overcrowded. The unemployment rate is estimated at 95 percent, and no
one is paying taxes. U.N. troops are still stationed throughout the
country to keep the peace.

Strong presidential leadership is essential to maintain peace in
Liberia, Eastman said. "Our soldiers have still not surrendered all
their weapons; they are buried," he said. "They (the combatants in
Liberia's civil war) are untrained in anything else but fighting; the
only thing they know of family life is war."

*Snyder and Malone are communicators living in the Washington D.C. area.
Snyder is senior minister of Foundry United Methodist Church. Malone is
an affordable-housing advocate with the Alliance for Healthy Homes.

News media contact: Tim Tanton, Nashville, Tenn., (615) 742-5470 or
newsdesk@umcom.org.

********************

United Methodist News Service
Photos and stories also available at:
http://umns.umc.org

----------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe from this group, go to UMCom.org, log in to your account,
click on the My Resources link and select the Leave option on the list(s)
from which you wish to unsubscribe. If you have problems or questions, please
write to websupport@umcom.org.

Powered by United Methodist Communications http://www.UMCom.org