Liberia ushers in President Weah

By Ben Asante The long running real life drama of former football superstar turned politician George Weah becoming President of Liberia reaches its climax today with his swearing-in before large groups of supporters  at the country’s main stadium in Monrovia.  The road for George Weah’s from grass to grace rise becoming president has been long […]

By Ben Asante

The long running real life drama of former football superstar turned politician George Weah becoming President of Liberia reaches its climax today with his swearing-in before large groups of supporters  at the country’s main stadium in Monrovia. 

The road for George Weah’s from grass to grace rise becoming president has been long and tortuous including challenges due to personal shortcomings raised by the opposition. Both the 2005 and 2011 races including Weah, the incumbent President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf ending in run-offs excited many across Liberia and within the ECOWAS region due to Weah’s ‘stardom power’ always remaining a strong defining factor. 

How does one explain the conversion of Weah’s football stardom power into the acquiring political power including climbing to the top political office in land? While the first civil war lasting nearly a decade raged, everything about Liberia at the time was negative. The only positive news Liberians and outsiders knew and heard was about Weah and his mates playing football and thus raising high the name of Liberia. Weah, at the time was palpably synonymous with Liberia. ECOMOG peacekeepers have testified to the fact that rebel fighters of the former warlord Charles Taylor would drop their weapons, hide them and come across the line to watch football matches involving Weah and the national team in Monrovia

In the 2005 race many had expected a major upset given that among the candidates, the former football star Weah had been matched against a Harvard trained former finance minister, a former World Bank official Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. The question of who was more qualified to run the country was on everybody’s mind. National Security officials in various government houses within the ECOWAS region kept encircling the name of Weah with many question marks as briefs to their principals. In one particular case, Obasanjo, then in office actually put in a late night phone call through to Monrovia to find out who was in the lead.  When the votes were forced into a run-off former Presidents Obasanjo and John Kufuor summoned Weah and suggested to him that he was young and still has time in his favour. President Sirleaf was to win the 2005 race and went on to win the re-election in 2011. But somewhere in-between Weah successfully defeated President Sirleaf’s son Robert Sirleaf winning a seat to country’s Upper Chamber, the Senate. As it is, the Senate seat has turned out to be a stepping stone for him to becoming the President replacing the outgoing President Sirleaf. 

Because of claims by Weah’s supporters that he was cheated in the previous elections, fears had existed that his followers may resort to violence. With the past civil war in mind, the ECOWAS region had the country under close watch. First, all parties were made to pledge themselves to a peaceful process. When the race ran into an impasse with legal challenges, Guinea’s President Alpha Conde and current ECOWAS chairman President Faure Eyadema jetted into Monrovia and once again asked parties to commit themselves to the constitutional and judiciary process in resolving disputes arising from the election.

When the final voting took place December 26 and eventually decided in favour of Weah, regional leaders kept on the pressure. The UN dispatched Chief Obasanjo and the UN secretary general’s representation to West Africa and the Sahel region Mohammed Ibn Chambas to the country. Chief Obasanjo found himself walking on a familiar regional political turf engaging on ‘early warning, preventive diplomatic shuttle and conflict prevention’ strategies. He was with Vice-President Joseph Boakai when he called to concede to Weah concede to him while pledging to work with him in building the country. Following this unprecedented gesture by Boakai President-elect Weah visited his residence. Clearly the Liberians had taken ownership of the peaceful transition from out-going President Sirleaf to newly elected President Weah. 

There is no doubt that today George Weah is the President and enjoys the goodwill of the many who voted him despite the strong campaign of others who felt he was less endowed than the defeated VP Boakai acclaimed for his vast worth of administrative experience and knowledge. The road for Weah getting to the present top of the political ladder in the quest to be president has not been easy. Besides his twelve years campaigning within Liberia, people close to him speak of the many trips he had made crisscrossing the USA where large influential voices of Liberians in the Diaspora spoke in his favour. Often it was one game of charity football match follow by town hall meetings. He set off a chain of Pipe-piper likeness with large numbers following him from Illinois to Rhode Island and extending across the towns and villages within Liberia, all voting to make him President. Others insist that Weah becoming president got more than a little help from outing President Sirleaf who had long ago known it known her desire to handover to a younger generation.

George Weah is President but comes the harder part of the many complex problems facing his countrymen which would not disappear easily. These include the huge challenges of the economy, infrastructures, reconciliation, corruption, education and health.  The many who voted for him naturally remain desperate for solutions by Weah’s leadership. Can he succeed where President Sirleaf tried hard but found herself challenged?

Newly sworn-in President Weah enjoys the goodwill of his followers, well-wishers within the region and of others around the world as the first ever footballer to emerge as a President. The thing is Weah is a citizen first with all rights to be president before being a footballer. Interestingly this is what democracy can sometimes throw-up.

Asante is a veteran journalist who covered the civil wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone and a former political editor of Africa Now and New African magazines published out of London.