Photography by Shoana Clarke-Sayeh
More Information
|
Thomas Jaye
Liberia: 2005 Elections
and the Challenges Ahead
Introduction
The election of Mrs. Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf as Liberia’s and Africa’s first female president has been celebrated by many people both in Africa and beyond as the dawn of a new day in contemporary African politics. Understandably, on a continent where men have dominated politics since independence, the ways in which Mrs. Sirleaf has been greeted can be understood and accepted. Congratulations to Mrs. Sirleaf for breaking into the circle of male presidency. If anything, Liberia's 2005 election has altered the notion that African society is so patriarchal that we cannot allow women to rule. Once more, Liberia has set the pace for the rest of Africa. This time around, I hope our example will be of such a positive nature, that we will be emulated across the length and breadth of the continent for the greater good.
On a more critical note, there seems to be emerging a sense of female triumphalism in West Africa, as if the struggle in Africa has been fought between women and men. I refuse to accept that Africa is in a big mess today because it has been ruled by men. All throughout my political upbringing, I have never thought of politics in this way; I have never thought for a moment that the election of a woman could end Africa’s misery. On the contrary, we are in this position because of the global structures and systems within which we are operating. Certainly, I welcome the political developments in Liberia; but rather than see them within the context of women versus men, I think we need to put these developments in proper perspective. Historically, Africa has traversed the troubled paths of slavery and colonialism, and continues to do so under neo-colonialism. Given the nature of the world capitalist economy, it is more than certain that the continent and its economies will continue to serve as a source of cheap raw materials and supplier of cheap labour. Any leader, be it a woman or a man, who believes that Africa and the African people can be emancipated from impoverishment through neo-liberalism is doomed to failure. The success or failure of Mrs. Sirleaf will depend largely on what policies she pursues, and the ability of her administration to address those things that will make ordinary people feel secure in their own homes and country. Therefore, if Ellen fails tomorrow, let us not blame it on African women but solely on her.
In what follows, I provide a capsule analysis of contemporary Liberian politics and the challenges ahead. In this light, the essay touches on democracy, security and other related issues.
Liberian Civil War in Retrospect
Founded in 1822 by freed black slaves repatriated from the United States of North America, Liberia has been beset by a number of problems. To summarise, over the past 158 years of independence, Liberia has been plagued by serious issues of poor governance, lack of rule of law, poverty, economic mismanagement, graft, illiteracy, and broadly speaking, the lack of security for the broader masses of the people. Like most African countries, Liberia has been engulfed by exclusionary politics, and therefore, for the most part of its history, Africa’s first Republic has only experimented with democratic politics, but it has never practiced democracy.
For example, up to the 2005 elections, the country has virtually been governed as a one-party state with an over-bearing executive branch of government within the country’s tripartite state system. The president of Liberia has been a powerful figure who virtually decided everything. Indeed, power was personalised, and thus Liberia was nothing more or less than a classical patrimonial state.
Most of what we refer to as elections could be categorised as a façade. There were elections held when the winner was decided long before even a single vote was cast. In specific cases, election results exacerbated rather than stabilised conflicts; such were the elections of 1927, 1955, 1985 and 1997. During the elections of 1927, Charles D. B. King and his vice presidential candidate, Allen Yancy, were declared winners over T. J. Faulkner. Dissatisfied with the results, Faulkner, who was visiting the United States, campaigned not just about the results of the elections, but also about the practice of slavery in the country. His presentations to the US State Department and the American press culminated into an investigation of the forcible capture and trafficking of Liberian labourers to Fernando Po (now Equatorial Guinea) to work on Spanish Plantations. The investigation led to the resignation of King and Yancy from their respective posts. Arguably, besides slavery, the forcible recruitment of Liberian labourers to Fernando Po constitutes what is referred to today as ‘human’ or ‘child’ trafficking in West Africa.
In the 1955 elections, Tubman did not only ban his opponents from participating, but some were forced into exile. In the immediate aftermath of those elections, a major political crisis engulfed the country, leading to the death of S. D. Coleman and his son in the infamous ‘plot that failed.’ Similarly, the elections of 1985 created the basis for the NPFL insurgency against the Doe regime. Many Liberians were forced into exile after the Doe elections, and it was from among those exiles that the NPFL recruited its initial fighters. Doe was killed by one of the armed groups: the Independent National Patriotic Front of Liberia (INPFL) led by now Senator Prince Johnson. In recent years, and to be precise, in July 1997, Charles Taylor was elected president of Liberia in what his critics were soon to describe as a rather ‘dubious’ and ‘unfair’ electoral process. Like the previous cases, the Taylor election led to the birth of the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) and the Movement for Democracy in Liberia (MODEL), which led an insurgency against him. Inevitably, the country was engulfed in armed violence and, like King, Taylor resigned and was forced into exile. Taylor’s vice president, Moses Blah, remained in charge until the National Transitional Government of Liberia (NTGL) was seated.
It is against this backdrop of elections and crises in Liberia that some of us became alarmed by the claims that the 2005 elections were marred by fraud and gross irregularities. Let us only hope that for once, another crisis will not engulf the country because of such perceived or actual malpractices. Notably, over the past 15 years, the key local actors of Liberian politics have been elements of the status quo ante and the middle class elements that have led and supported the armed factions, intellectuals, youth from the rural and urban areas, and the unemployed. All of these people have different political interests and subscribe to different political philosophies, but the underlining drive has been the struggle for power, prestige and wealth, and for revenge. Therefore, ordinary Liberians have been the victims of the games that politicians play. Externally, African governments like Burkina Faso, Libya and Cote d’Ivoire have been directly involved in the politics of the country. Subregional mercenaries and gunrunners from Central and Eastern Europe have also been players in Liberian politics.
2005 Electoral Process
Generally, the electoral process was peaceful and illustrated that the people were fed up with war as an instrument of politics. However, there were certain problems that need to be pointed out. These range from the skewed press coverage of candidates to sheer gutter politics, both in the media and at street corners around the country.
First, let us begin with the preparations for and conditions under which the elections were held. One of the major flaws of the process was the lack of adequate civic education for voters, which partly explains why many ballots were cancelled. In some parts of the country, the registration of voters was marred by irregularities because the process was carried out by mobile units. Due to this, those who could not get to registration sites on time because of long distances were never registered, and so were disenfranchised by the National Elections Commission, which employed this method.
Second, the timing of the elections was problematic because this was the period of torrential rains in Liberia. Traveling throughout Liberia was extremely difficult. For example, I traveled from Monrovia to Harper during the elections and had to sleep four nights on the road before reaching my destination. The roads were so bad that others spent weeks before reaching their respective destinations. The disturbing thing is that you could hardly find a mechanic between major towns like Zwedru, Ganta, Tapita, Gbarnga, Fishtown, Pleebo and Harper. Thus, for example, when our four-wheel drive vehicles broke down between Zwedru and Karweaken, we could not get a mechanic to repair the minor damage. It was so comical that in Duoye’s Town, there was a mechanic without tools. Under such circumstances, we ended up relying on quack mechanics that made the conditions of the vehicles worse.
Third, the media reports were skewed in favour of particular candidates. I was informed that local journalists were taking bribes to publish stories. The poverty situation in the country also made things worse in the sense that those with more money got their campaign news or stories published in the major papers nearly everyday. Fingers can also be pointed at the BBC and VOA for their rather slanted reportage. I say this because when I visited Division 10 of the Cavalla Rubber Plantation in Maryland County, besides Shad Tubman and Winston Tubman who originate from this county, the only other candidates the people knew about were George Weah and Mrs. Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf. While they both may have run effective campaigns, the biased publicity in the media certainly helped both candidates.
Regrettably, the elections were hurriedly held without any reforms: constitutional and legal reforms, security sector reform, including restructuring of the army, etc. This means that the new administration will be presiding over reform processes that aim to limit its power and authority. One thing is clear; Liberia now has new leadership whose success or failure will depend on how Liberians put their energies together to deepen the modest democratic gains they have made and make relapse to war impossible. This is the challenge we must all face.
Elections as Strategy for War Ending and Democratisation
The elections in Liberia should be viewed within the context of the generic models of conflict management employed by the international community of states. In their thinking, post-conflict elections serve the twin objectives of bringing wars to an end and democratising post-conflict societies. However, as experience has shown elsewhere, including Liberia (1997), such objectives are not easily achievable through elections. A lot has to be done in order for electoral democratic gains to be translated into substantive democratic gains.
This brings me to the issue of the perception of democracy on the eve of elections and after. There are three major ways of perceiving this democratic project:
- Procedural: The argument that democracy in Africa is about holding periodic elections through competitive politics.
- Participatory: The argument that democracy calls for active participation of the citizenry and, in this light, they must be educated in order to achieve this objective.
- Substantive: The argument that democracy calls for governments to be responsible to their people by providing their basic broader security needs.
Unfortunately, to place emphasis on one of these elements at the expense of others is a tragic error that will continue to create legitimacy crisis for most African states.
One would have thought that coming out of 14 years of war, Liberians would be interested in the nature and type of democracy they were putting in place by voting in the elections of October and November 2005. However, all throughout the electoral process, no one talked about any of the critical issues that needed to be addressed in order to resolve the underlying causes of the war. In this light, what was happening in Liberia was tantamount to what Noam Chomsky refers to as ‘personalized quadrennial extravaganzas.’ The advantaged presidential candidates stayed clear of the real issues facing real people; their parties and campaigners were very busy convincing voters about who would make a good leader, who would become a dictator, or who was worse than the other. It was not about who stood for what and could do what. Undoubtedly, these people were not prepared to explain to the voters why they felt that their candidates were good leaders and why others were dictators in the making. One must ask, whose good leaders: the masses, elites, or corporate elements? Unfortunately, many of these con men and women with demagogic streaks were not prepared to educate the voters. The media did not help the situation either; personality and fame dominated the headlines, as opposed to the real issues.
When it came to democratic politics, the issue of the perception of democracy was never discussed. Neither civil society nor the political parties and their leaders put this issue on the electoral agenda. Had such debates taken place, it would have helped the voters with their choices of candidates for both the legislative and presidential offices. Of course, the usual excuse was that the people were too illiterate to understand such a discourse. What utter nonsense! If our people were that illiterate, then why did we entrust the future of the country in their hands by allowing them to vote for a leader? Yes, they can vote but cannot be trusted to think for themselves, let alone decide who to vote for on a level playing field. But everything is history now. Not in the least did I expect the international society of states to introduce such a debate, because it is never in their interests to do so.
It is becoming increasingly clear that the big powers are more interested in a certain kind of effective leadership in most African countries, particularly those in the Gulf of Guinea, than they are in democratic politics. In the new scramble for Africa, the Gulf of Guinea has become strategic because it has oil; and with the Middle East in turmoil, the major oil consuming countries see this part of the world as strategic to their national security interests to serve as an alternative source of energy. Such is the tragedy of democratic politics in our part of the world.
The key question was and continues to be: what democracy and whose democracy? In essence, what benefits do we derive from these elections and those we have elected into power? What should be the role of the Liberian state in providing for the broader security needs of the ordinary people? Indeed, these issues are crucial because depending on the way we address them, the modest electoral democratic gains achieved so far may not be sustained. It seems quite evident that the reform process may slip down the slope of mere participatory democracy. On the basis of the three typologies suggested above, it would be very much problematic to put emphasis on this element of democracy at the expense of the other two: particularly substantive democracy. This is true because sooner or later, the citizens of Liberia will begin to ask: what have these elections put on our tables? The answer to this question can only be provided by the new administration of Mrs. Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf. The Liberian people, however, particularly civil society, can press for changes in this direction.
Mrs. Sirleaf and the Challenges of Post-War Reconstruction
Mrs. Sirleaf has the unenviable task of addressing the challenges of post-war reconstruction, including the need to address youth unemployment, economic dislocation, state and societal collapse, ethnic hatred, fragmented security sector (including the restructuring of the army), poor infrastructure: hospital, schools, roads and others. After 14 years of war associated with unbearable human suffering and deprivation, the new administration faces the burden of high expectations. The vast majority of Liberians are looking up to the new administration to provide them with the basic necessities of life. Managing such expectations will remain a major challenge for Mrs. Sirleaf and her team.
On the security situation, there is a need to address the issue of reforming the army and completing the Reintegration and Rehabilitation (RR) of the Demobilisation, Disarmament, Rehabilitation and Reintegration (DDRR) process. By the end of October 2004, about 103,019 ex-fighters had been disarmed and demobilized. Until July 2005, only 46,000 fighters had really gone through the RR phase of the programme. The retirement of the AFL soldiers makes matters even worse by throwing a lot of militarily trained people into society. Though the new administration has shown concern about the future of these people through public statements, the reality is that no tangible solution has been found about the way forward. The new administration is thinking about setting up a Department of Veterans’ Affairs to address issues facing ex-fighters and ex-soldiers. Importantly, the issue of ex-fighters and retired and retrenched soldiers is about development and more precisely, job creation. One would t herefore hope that this will be a major preoccupation of the new department.
Currently, the country is embroiled in debates about the arrest and detention of Charles Taylor in Sierra Leone. Taylor’s detention has indeed put fears in the minds of the leaders of defunct armed factions, who really believe now that the Taylor incarceration is a rat trap that is bound to catch them all. This being the case, there is a potential threat to the security of the Mano River basin countries, in the sense that it could generate all sorts of unholy alliances of all of the armed factions in resistance to the arrests of their leaders. Even the Kamajors (whose leader Hinga Norma is in prison in Sierra Leone), and the defunct RUF and NPFL could unite to cause problems for the sub-region.
On a totally different note, Liberia’s current diplomatic activities are focused on wooing foreign investors and generating aid from donors. For a country still banned from selling its timber and diamonds, a country that has emerged from war with a very contracted and dislocated economy, there may seem to be no other alternatives. All the same, I cannot be convinced to believe that foreign investment and aid are the panacea to Liberia’s problems. John Perkins’s widely discussed book, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man (2004),1 exposes the traps of western managerial, governmental, and economic assistance in Third World countries. Raymond Baker’s Capitalism’s Achilles Heel (2005)2 and Joseph Stiglitz’s Globalization and its Discontents (2003) 3 also offer critical insights into how global capitalist economy works against a genuine development agenda. Private investment may serve as an engine of growth, and it can certainly play a positive role in Liberia’s post-war recovery. However, we must resist thinking that the role of private investment and foreign aid are the only ways to solve Liberia’s problems. Certain immediate problems might be solved, but in the long run the people of Liberia will pay a heavy price.
I hope that in the process of trying to resolve development issues and leave office as a successful president, Mrs. Sirleaf is guided by past experience. I have painful memories of a visit to Saniquelle in the late 1970s, where I was shocked by the level of under-development right under the nose of LAMCO, Yekepa. That European area was well developed, while the surrounding exploited areas were not. As well, we now have Bomi Holes right in the environs of Monrovia where Bomi Hills used to be. Signing contracts that further exploit, destroy and under-develop Liberia reinforces the cycle of dependency without progress, and further underscores the threats to national security from continued poverty, displacement and environmental destruction. O Lord, please help us stop minimising the role of the state in her development.
Liberia: The Way Forward
Can the modest electoral democratic gains be sustained beyond the departure of the United Nations, its agencies and International Nongovernmental Organizations (INGOs)? The answer to this question cannot be a straightforward yes or no. One has to be cautious in the answer s/he provides. Given the challenges highlighted above, it is clear that if the role of external actors is not facilitative, what has been achieved will be derailed.
Whatever projects are being put into place as part and parcel of the broader post-war reconstruction programmes should be informed by local knowledge. Local ownership is crucial if the gains made are to be secured. I say this because in Liberia today, most of the programmes are conceived, designed and implemented with relatively minimal local input and ownership. Such is the case with, for example, the restructuring of the army and security sector reforms in the country. As usual, the ‘cut and paste’ and ‘one size fits all’ methods have been employed in addressing deep-rooted problems that have the potential to cause renewed fighting. Unfortunately, a weak civil society is unable or unwilling to champion this process and, as obvious from the elections, the ‘left’ or ‘progressives’ in Liberia lost out. These are issues addressed later in this essay.
In terms of the way forward, one of the best things to do in Liberia is to shift the debate about ex-fighters and retired soldiers from a military one to a developmental one. By doing so, the problem of these so-called ‘veterans’ will not be the sole responsibility of the Ministry of Defense and the National Commission for Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (NCDDRR), but also for ministries in Liberia that work on development issues such as the Ministry of Planning, Agriculture, and Public works, etc. What people need is nothing more and nothing less than decent jobs; job creation must be at the very heart of the debates.
The burden of expectations Mrs. Sirleaf faces is intensified by what people have gone through during the past 15 years. I was in Liberia during the elections, and the general notion at the time was that as an educated person trained in economics at Harvard University, Mrs. Sirleaf had the ears of the powerful people ruling the world today from Washington D.C. to London, Berlin, Tokyo and Paris. To a large extent, this notion was spread throughout the country by Mrs. Sirleaf's Unity Party campaigners, who were using it to get votes. Now that she has won, such expectations could pose a threat to political stability. From where I sit, Liberia is one of 12 countries in the Gulf of Guinea over which large corporations are scrambling. Is Mrs. Sirleaf fully aware that this may not translate into resolving our development problems? On the contrary, given the track record of these corporations throughout Africa and the Third World, their control of our economies will most likely directly create the basis for the relapse into more protracted conflicts in years to come.
The other challenge facing this administration has to do with maintaining military security throughout the length and breadth of Liberia. Given the fact that 14 years of war have fragmented and factionalised the security sector in Liberia, the over-reliance on UNMIL and the US private military company, DynCorp, may seem understandable. Liberians, however, need to work together in order to ensure that the security sector is transformed in the proper way. The whole idea of trying to restructure and train the national army before a defense review is problematic and tantamount to planting the rice before clearing the field.
The other challenge is running an effective government comprising competent, qualified and respectable people. On this score, there are no major qualms about the choices that Mrs. Sirleaf has made thus far, though public opinion suggests otherwise. For some, this is the return of the Old Order, as many people from the TWP background have been placed in strategic and lucrative positions within the government. Until I do a survey of the people in government, I will refrain from passing judgement. Iif, however, the claims of Mrs. Sirleaf's critics are correct, this is something that the President must address and take steps to correct. Certainly, there are winners and losers in post-elections Liberia, and given the fact that the government is a major source of employment, wealth and prestige within the society, those left out of the equation constitute a major headache for the new administration. Already, there are huge tensions in Monrovia about the recruitment of personnel from the Diaspora, when people who have lived and worked in the country during the course of the war years seem to be left in the cold. This is not healthy for a society emerging out of a conflict situation.
The ‘Left’ and the Future of Liberian Politics
I grew up in Liberia from the days of William V. S. Tubman, Sr. to the arrival of S. K. Doe. Before departing the country in 1981, I had always thought Liberia would make progress. Sadly, what I have witnessed instead is regression. The period of the 1970s were hopeful because of the role of activist groups like the Movement for Justice in Africa (MOJA), the All-People’s Freedom Alliance (APFA), the Progressive Alliance of Liberia (PAL) and the university student movements. That period created a critical mass of democracy activists, some of whom remain committed to emancipatory politics today. However, those who are holding the fortress of emancipatory politics are not only small in number, but are in exile and dispersed in different parts of world. There are others who have decided to throw in the white towel, and this has given room to a sense of triumphalism on the part of the elements of the Old Order, who rejoice that the days of the ‘progressives’ are over.
The most disappointing fact about the ‘left’ or ‘progressives’ is that they remain divided at the personal and ideological levels without any signs of their deep-seated divisions being resolved. Were they to succeed in putting together a group, whether within the framework of the coalition that brought the Liberian People’s Party (LPP) and the United People’s Party (UPP) into the Alliance for Peace and Democracy (APD), or under totally new groups, there would still be the baggage of bitter personality-driven and ideological rivalries inherited from exile years. The distrust and mistrust between and among elements that constitute the ‘left’ or ‘progressives’ makes any realignment of forces almost impossible.
Speaking from a vantage point, what is even more worrying is that there is a huge political and ideological gulf between the cadres produced during the struggle of the 1970s and early 1980s and the young generation of people now. In the 1970s and 1980s, cadres were produced through study circles and people were clearer about why and what they were struggling for: Pan-Africanism, anti-apartheid, anti-imperialism and the social democratic transformation of society. It becomes clear today that some of these people were not committed to any of the ideas they espoused. Given what is occurring now in Liberia, it's evident that many of yesterday's leaders were in struggle simply to replace the status quo ante, and not to radically transform an unjust society. In Liberia today, idealism, in fact, is a curse. Yesterday’s idealists, who are today’s so-called realists, seem to forget that their status is no more than a band-aid.
Under such circumstances, to talk about the ‘left’ (or whatever people choose to call themselves these days) leading any struggle for the radical transformation of Liberia is highly suspect and should be treated with caution. I am convinced by recent events that for a large segment of the so-called progressives, the struggle has always been more about self and ego-tripping than anything else. To cite Amilcar Cabral, we should “tell no lies and claim no easy victories.” But one cannot afford to lose hope; out of this current ugly and bleak situation will emerge a new group and individuals that can help Liberia move forward in the right direction. Though certain elements have used the struggle to advance their personal agendas, this does not undermine the struggle, nor does it eliminate the necessity for the struggle to continue. All is not lost, as the last part of this essay seems to infer. Sometimes it is better to put things as bluntly as possible and still have faith that the situation is redeemable.
All Hail, Liberia Hail!
Endnotes
1. Perkins, John. Confessions of an Economic Hit Man: The Shocking Story of How America Really Took Over the World. Ebury Press, February 2006.
2. Baker, Raymond W. Capitalism's Achilles Heel: Dirty Money and How to Renew the Free-Market System. John Wiley & Sons Inc., September 2005.
3. Stiglitz, Joseph E. Globalization and Its Discontents. W. W. Norton & Company, April 2003.
Find purchase information for Dr. Jaye's book:
Issues of Sovereignty, Strategy and Security in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS): Intervention in the Liberian Civil War. Lewiston, New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 2003.
current issue
|
