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Headlines
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Written by Our Senior Staff
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Thursday, 21 June 2012 01:09 |
 The temptation to lure democrats in Africa into dictators has hunted many leaders on the continent until they are ousted by elections or otherwise.
America’s brain child Liberia has since 2005 broken the record by producing a female president on the continent thereby prompting African women to rise to the occasion of getting into the mainstream of politics.
The change of political culture in Liberia by placing a woman at the helm of state power has since been embraced and understood as a shutdown on practicing dictatorship in the acclaimed first independent African nation.
President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf seems to have proven her might by whatever means when she won a competitive election through a protested presidential runoff in November 2011.
The political relevance of President Sirleaf’s re-election appeared to have been characterized by her contacts with the international community, evidenced by the level of stability and infrastructural development the post-conflict country has experienced during the first six years of the Unity Party-led administration.
Within the corridors of foreign partners, who political activities supporting the current regime believe in, no one other than President Sirleaf would lead the country for another six years to retain the pace of post-conflict development in the country.
Well calculated, a Norwegian influenced Nobel Peace Prize and the campaign by Liberians who wanted to protect their jobs secured during the first regime, seemingly placed the incumbent in a comfortable position to outweigh disorganized opposition groupings’ changes to take the gavel of authority during the elections.
Now in the middle of the first year of the second regime of Madam Sirleaf, glaring disappointments are reportedly setting in to equate the regime with past regimes when nepotism, favoritism and class system have seemingly become the order of the day.
Hopes for job security do not seem to be holding for loyalists who ‘bad mouthed’ opposition elements during the campaign period. Many of those who campaigned for the ruling Unity Party including its partisans, who expected top positions in government, are becoming disgruntled and tempted to some extent to join critics of the regime but for fear of public ridicule, it seems difficult to go public.
Pundits have referred to the appointments of key personalities in various ministries and agencies of government as “transfers of cronies” by President Sirleaf to amass wealth.
There have been discoveries to support such claim as some ministries have been occupied by ministers and their close associates. Finance and Education Ministries have come live as people assumingly handpicked by ministers have in recent time been exposed to the public by inside sources.
“Even though they do not speak to the public on their operations, internal auditors are really helping the process of advocating for transparency and accountability,” one analyst told the In Profile Daily last evening.
In some quarters, a perception is growing that President Sirleaf is providing protection to a select few, who see themselves as untouchable.
“As Benjamin Yeaten was to Taylor so is Mary Broh to Madam Sirleaf. As LPRC was to Taylor so also it is to Madam Sirleaf,” a critic who has been following the Broh-Senate saga has indicated.
The question that remains on the lips of all concerned is that where lies democracy, the economic interest of the state, the vow of President Sirleaf to fight corruption, etc.
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Last Updated on Thursday, 21 June 2012 01:14 |
