Former Child Soldiers Hope Soccer Star Will Lead Liberia

Many of the teenagers who fought in civil wars for 14 years, looting, raping and killing their way across this country, are now old enough to vote. And they believe they have found their messiah: retired soccer star George Weah, who grew up in a slum and dropped out of high school.

Liberians once feared the child soldiers, who often fought in a haze of drugs and alcohol and dressed in women’s clothing and wigs. Now many older or educated Liberians are wary of the voting power of these semiliterate young adults as Weah seeks the presidency in balloting today.

Liberians head to the polls in the first elections since the 2003 ousting of former President Charles Taylor, and Weah appears to have the edge in a field of 22 candidates. His young fans call him “The King.”

To them, the 39-year-old ex-footballer’s limited education and lack of political experience are no problem.

Despite a remarkably calm election campaign, Andrew Johnson, 43, a resident of the Jatondo camp for internally displaced people outside Monrovia, fears a violent reaction from Weah’s supporters if he loses.

“These are children and they’re a real problem,” he said. “They think he can play football and if he becomes president the youth will have a chance. They’re ex-combatants and they’re used to war. They can do anything.”

Analysts see today’s presidential and parliamentary elections not as a panacea for the country’s ills but as a crucial first step if Liberia is to become something other than a failed state looted by corrupt governments and torn apart by warlords who have pillaged its resources.

“Getting it wrong would probably seal the region’s fate for years to come as the theater of a nomadic war in which aimless and cruel young men roam from one country to another, seeking the most lucrative sites to loot. The stakes are high,” said a report last month on the election by the analytical International Crisis Group.

There are no opinion polls, but many see Ellen JohnsonSirleaf as Weah’s main rival.

The 66-year-old economist is making a strong appeal to women, who make up half of the registered 1.3 million voters. She also is pushing her Harvard master’s degree in public administration and experience at the World Bank, Citibank, the United Nations and as Liberia’s finance minister, in a country desperate for competent leadership.

In Liberia, they refer to the presidential residence simply as “the mansion.” Johnson-Sirleaf’s supporters rally with a catchy campaign song about “Ellie’s got the mansion key.” Weah’s supporters, meanwhile, chant that “he no kill my mama, he no kill my papa,” a reference to the fact that he wasn’t involved in the country’s wars.

The crowded field of presidential aspirants includes two former warlords. If no candidate receives more than 50% of the vote, there will be a runoff election between the two top candidates in November, with Weah favored by many analysts to win.

Monrovia in October is mossy, damp and lush, a sprawl of squalor tumbling to the beaches where gray breakers crash under a silver sky. The capital has no water or electricity, while schools and hospitals are decrepit.

The country’s problems are colossal: a grinding $3-billion debt burden for a population of only 3.3 million, more than 80% unemployment and a high illiteracy rate.

Johnson-Sirleaf argues that, with a small population and an abundance of timber, diamonds, rubber and gold, Liberia could become West Africa’s Singapore if a firm hand reined in corruption, reformed the civil service and improved education and training. She said a period of sharp growth during the 1960s was squandered.

“We were a frivolous country,” said the sprightly and articulate Johnson-Sirleaf in an interview. “Our failure was to use the opportunities of the past or even to unite our people.”

Johnson-Sirleaf initially supported Taylor’s 1989 rebellion to oust the autocratic leader Samuel Doe, but ran against Taylor in the 1997 presidential election, coming in second. Some voters see her as tainted by the Taylor connection. Weah never took sides.

Weah’s platform is similar, but he is vague on how he would achieve his goals.

“The people love me because of my achievements, because of the contribution I have made to my country,” the soft-spoken Weah said during a news conference. “As a son of this country I believe in the people.”

One question hanging over the election is the extent to which the exiled warlord Taylor, who is in Nigeria, may try to influence events.

Most Liberians hope that, whatever the result, there will be no return to fighting -- thanks in part to the presence of 15,000 U.N. peacekeepers.

“We accepted the war because we were blind. We didn’t know what war could do,” said Sheriff Abdul, a 42-year-old teacher. “Now we know what war can do. No war will come here because Liberians will not support war no more.”

Last weekend, more than 100,000 young people, overwhelmingly male ex-combatants and a large number of them below voting age, took to the streets to support Weah in a rally headlined “Armageddon, the final showdown.” Banners read “The Messiah Has Come.”

The march started at 7 a.m. Dozens of participants passed out, and at least one child died waiting in a crush at Weah’s headquarters before the candidate finally appeared onstage at 6:30 p.m. As he read a 25-minute speech, Weah made no acknowledgment when three times unconscious women were dragged onto the stage a couple of yards from him.

One supporter, Foster Cooper, 28, a high school student, said educated people had run Liberia in the past “and no one did anything for us.”

But Augustin Peterson, 41, of Jatondo camp, said Weah was surrounded by opportunists and not fit to rule.

“To be president he should be physically fit in his speech. ... He’s got to be talking on the top government level,” Peterson said. “If he becomes president, it will be a football president.”