Opposition leader calls for political reform

Liberian opposition leader Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf called for a “rebalancing of power between the presidency and the people”, at a conference on the Liberian economy held on 4-6 November in Monrovia. “An imperial presidency which has the power of life or death, wealth or poverty, success or failure for everyone in its hands is an obstruction for progress,” Johnson Sirleaf said. Consideration should be given to the creation of a “rotational system which provides opportunity for all political subdivisions to have a chance at top leadership of the country,” she told the conference, funded by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) through the Carter Centre. This, she said, would “prevent monopolisation of power by any individual or ethnic group.” Johnson-Sirleaf, who was a candidate in the July 1997 presidential election, won by Charles Taylor, said the electoral system needed to be revised, starting with the creation of an independent electoral oversight body. The conference, chaired by Amos Sawyer, chairman of the Center for Democratic Empowerment (CEDE), was attended by representatives of the government, opposition parties, civil society and the private sector. Conmany Wesseh, the executive director of CEDE, told IRIN that conference participants would issue later this week a “final declaration” that could be useful to an international team of aid donors due to arrive in Monrovia on 15 November to assess Liberia’s development needs.