Monrovia — For a country that has just emerged out of one of the deadliest civil wars in Africa's modern history, Liberia has managed to conduct a surprisingly peaceful campaign leading to tomorrow's presidential and legislative elections.
As campaigning came to an end, political parties shared the pavements of the capital Monrovia on Saturday without serious incidents. Clashes were generally limited to verbal exchanges between rival partisans, who shouted their party's slogans.
In the Sinkor area of the city, supporters from the former ruling National Patriotic Party (NPP) of ousted leader Charles Taylor encountered a group from the Congress for Democratic Change (CDC), the party headed by the popular soccer star George Weah. The two groups moved to opposite sides of the boulevard and traded taunts. For their ammunition, the young Taylor clique borrowed a slogan from the party led by Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who would become Africa's first elected female president if she won.
"The Old Ma say Go to School!," the Taylor backers yelled, while's Weah's followers responded: "He kill your Ma? No! He kill Your Pa? No He gave you Guns? No He only plays football!" After a few minutes of vocal confrontation, the groups resumed their marches in opposite directions.
NPP faithful gathered at the party compound in the former Ministry of Agriculture building, while the Liberty Party of Charles Brumskine and the Coalition for the Transformation of Liberia (Cotol), headed by Varney Sherman, put on 'pre-victory rallies' in other venues. Cotol held its meeting at the Antoinette Tubman stadium, where the crowd was much smaller than the thousands of people who rallied there for Ellen Johnson Sirleaf on Thursday and brought the city to a standstill for almost an entire day.
By far the biggest crowd turned out for Weah, who had invited his partisans to a 'victory party' at the large Samuel K. Doe stadium. Waves of young people and children moved through the streets from every corner of the city heading to the stadium, until it became clear that the facility was closed for renovation and the crowd had to reverse course and walk to Weah's headquarters.
Crowd estimates varied from tens of thousand to more than half a million, an impressive showing but apparently short of the organizer's call for a 'million man march.' At least one man was reportedly crushed in the crowd, and many more suffered from heat exhaustion and dehydration.
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Whether the large turnout of youth will help or hurt Weah won't be known until the results are in, which is expected to take about 10 days. The sight of hundreds of thousands of children following one politician was unsettling for many. It could lead to a galvanization of older voters. For their part, some Weah partisans are saying their leader has already won and suggesting that he can only be defeated by cheating.
Informal polls give the edge to Weah and Sirleaf, although the outcome is far from certain. While the candidates claim to be confident of victory, political parties have started to negotiate alliances for a possible second round. A run-off is required if no candidate wins more than 50 percent of the vote, with the date for that balloting tentatively scheduled for November 8.
International observers, including President Jimmy Carter and former Benin President Nicephore Soglo, are already in Monrovia. The involvement of the Carter Center in the Liberian peace process dates back to 1991, when the late President Houphouet Boigny of Cote d'Ivoire, who then chaired the peace negotiations, asked Mr. Carter to intervene. President Soglo, who was Chairman of the Economic Community of West African States, brokered the Cotonou Peace Accord that led to the formation of the first postwar transitional government in 1993. Since then, Liberia has had 5 transitional governments.
Liberians have been reminded by local leaders and by President Olusegun Obasanjo, who visited Monrovia on Friday and met with party leaders, that this is the last chance for Liberia to make a transition.
Meanwhile on Wednesday, the United Nations Military Mission in Liberia said the Chapter 7 mandate from the UN Security Council authorizes peacekeepers to use force to maintain order and that anyone attempting to disrupt the electoral process, during or after the voting, would be shot on sight.
