Diverse new parliament spells coalition for whoever ends up president

With more parties represented in Liberia's new parliament than ever before, the luxury of a majority is something the new president, be it soccer legend George Weah or veteran economist Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, can only dream of. Coalitions will be the order of the day for the aspiring heads of state, analysts say, not only to win the second-round ballot and move into the presidential mansion, but also to get anything done once they have their feet under the table. "The parliament and particularly the Senate, does have a lot of clout and whoever wins the second round will have to reckon with that," said Stephen Ellis, a Liberia expert based at the University of Leiden. "If parliamentarians really don't see eye to eye with the president then they can make life difficult for him or her." Weah and Sirleaf face a run-off for the presidency on 8 November, but the first round of voting on 11 October did decide the people who will take up the seats in the 30-member Senate and the 64-member House of Representatives. And analysts say the make-up of the new parliament is of crucial importance for the medium-term future of a country that is battling to shake off the legacy of 14 years of civil war, encourage foreign investment and stamp out corruption. "The House and the Senate will play key roles in determining the pace and direction of reform in the coming presidential term," explained Chris Melville, an analyst with London-based research group, Global Insight. Liberia's last elected parliament, chosen in 1997 during a break in the civil war, was composed of six parties. But the National Patriotic Party of then-president Charles Taylor, whose unofficial slogan was "You killed my ma, you killed my pa, I'll vote for you", had an overwhelming majority. "In Liberia there has always been a very strong executive branch that has not had effective checks and balances from other branches of the government. That needs to change," Donald Booth, the US ambassador to Liberia told reporters ahead of the elections. This time around there are 12 parties, the most in Liberia's history, as well as a handful of independent representatives. Weah with the upper hand Weah's newly-founded party, the Congress for Democratic Change, won the highest number of parliamentary seats, with 15 in the lower house and 3 in the upper -- but that was only about a fifth of those up for grabs.

Former AC Milan and Chelsea footballer George Weah

Sirleaf's Unity Party made a more modest showing with 8 seats in the Senate and 3 in the House. But analysts note that it was the only party to have obtained seats across the whole country, whereas Weah's representation was mainly concentrated in Montserrado County, the region around the capital. In between, were Varney Sherman and his Coalition for Transformation of Liberia, which won 15 seats in parliament and Charles Brumskine and his Liberty Party, which took 12 seats. Analysts say these two men are key for both presidential aspirants in terms of gaining power and then governing, but political ideals will not be the prime factor in any coalition deals. "Financial arrangements and positions in the new government will serve as the glue," said Melville at Global Insight. Sherman, who finished fifth in the first-round presidential vote, has already pledged all his financial and political resources into helping Weah complete his rags-to-riches tale, from a shantytown child in the 1960s to World Footballer of the Year in 1995 to Liberia's next president. Third-placed presidential candidate Brumskine, meanwhile, has issued a statement saying he will not endorse either candidate. While Taylor, now wanted by a UN-backed court in Sierra Leone to face charges of crimes against humanity, used parliament to rubber-stamp his policies, analysts say they are hopeful those days are over. "The new parliament will be a tough nut to crack by whosoever is elected, as they can not be easily manipulated," said Abdullai Kamara, a political analyst, in the capital, Monrovia. "There has got to be a multi-party approach for any decision to be taken or bills to be enacted into law." Global Insight's Melville is similarly upbeat, especially given the West African nation's reliance on the international community to rebuild its battered infrastructure. "Liberia's key international partners will be anxious to see a proper separation of powers, and if they don't see that, there would be consequences," he said. Hangovers from past However, others see Liberia's chances of breaking the cycle of bad governance in less rosy terms.

Monrovia is still a patchwork of shelled buildings and potholed roads two years after the war ended

Ellis at the University of Leiden points out that with the exception of Weah, nearly all the key political players have been on the scene for decades. "Whatever they did or didn't do, they collectively share the blame for the mess that Liberia got into," he said in a telephone interview. And groups like Human Rights Watch have already expressed their concerns about the records of some of those elected to office. These include former rebel leader Prince Yormi Johnson, who drank beer while his men cut off the ears of President Samuel Doe in 1990 and who has now been elected as one of the senators for Nimba County. The other senator for the northern region is infamous warlord "General Peanut Butter", alias Adolphus Dolo, who stands accused of recruiting child soldiers during the war. Further south in Bong County, Taylor's wife, Jewel Howard-Taylor, was also elected senator. She is subject to a UN imposed travel ban for constituting a threat to the peace process in Liberia. As the senators with the most votes in their respective counties, Johnson and Howard-Taylor can now look forward to a nine-year term in office. As the second-place senator, Dolo will serve six years. International observers have praised the violence-free conduct of the first round of elections as a remarkable achievement, considering residents in Monrovia were trying to dodge the random mortars and the stray bullets only two years ago. But some diplomats think the terms of office are too long, and say lasting stability will only return to the country when elections become a more frequent occurrence, where the people get a chance to kick out those that aren't up to scratch.