Liberia's strong grandmom

Chicago Tribune: Liberia's fortunes have been tied to strongmen for a disastrous quarter of a century. The result is an economy in ruins and a population exhausted by the endless killing. Now, Liberia is poised to take a different path.
Voters recently elected Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf to be the first woman president of Liberia. The 67-year-old widowed grandmother will be the first female elected head of state in all of Africa. She got the nickname "Iron Lady" for having the guts to run for president against the warlord Charles Taylor eight years ago.
She graduated from Harvard University and was an economist for the World Bank and United Nations. (She was also a waitress and swept floors at a drugstore in Madison, Wis., while she went to business school.) She served as Liberia's finance minister before the years of slaughter began in 1980, when the illiterate army Sgt. Samuel Doe staged a bloody coup.
Soccer star
Johnson-Sirleaf soundly defeated a populist candidate, soccer star George Weah. This signals a triumph of pragmatism by the electorate: Liberians want someone who can run a country. Johnson-Sirleaf faces immense challenges. Liberia's economy is a shambles, and corruption is endemic. The jobless rate is 85 percent. People cannot count on functioning electricity, sewers and running water. The health-care and public education systems are in disarray.
Johnson-Sirleaf also faces the prospect of intimidating political opposition. Weah's supporters are primarily angry young men who fought the wars that wracked Liberia under Taylor between 1989 and 1997. Taylor was forced into exile in Nigeria two years ago; he faces war crimes charges but remains a threat. A U.N. force of 15,000 keeps the peace in Liberia; its presence may be necessary for years.
The new president has promised political reconciliation and a new ethical standard for the government. She has offered Weah a Cabinet post. She also has promised to get the lights back on in Monrovia, the capital, within six months.
Liberia does have a few things going for it. It has natural resources: gems, timber and rubber. Now, it has a president of formidable intelligence and experience. Credit the U.N. peacekeeping mission and the people of Liberia for producing a rare commodity there: hope.