Sirleaf slams Weah for dodging face-to-face election debate

Presidential candidate Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf has rounded on her rival George Weah for shunning a live public debate with just a week to go until the run-off vote that will determine the next president of war-battered Liberia. Weah, the soccer millionaire and political novice who won the most votes in the first round in October, is set to go head-to-head with Harvard-educated economist and veteran politician Sirleaf at the ballot box on 8 November. But he has declined to take part in a face-to-face debate in Monrovia, scheduled for this week in front of a live audience of 700 people and due to be broadcast on local radio. "How does Mr Weah expect to communicate his vision and agenda to international partners, ranging from development theorists to scientists, if he cannot talk to his nation and people about his plans to lead this country," Sirleaf's Unity Party said in a statement on Tuesday. The party, which also won fewer seats than Weah's Congress for Democratic Change in October's parliamentary polls, said that voting for the former footballer in the second round when he did not want to stand up and explain his vision for the country, would be like "buying a pig in the bag." "The election is too important for us to let the Liberian people choose the next president without knowing what she or he plans to do to create jobs, reconstruct the country and build on the foundations of peace," the statement said. No-one from Weah's camp was immediately available for comment on Tuesday. The footballer -- who grew up kicking a ball barefoot in a shantytown suburb of Monrovia and ended up playing for Europe's greatest teams -- left the capital on Monday to campaign in Nimba, the northern county that has second highest number of voters. The debate, planned for Thursday, had been organised by the National Democratic Institute and the International Republican Institute. The two democracy groups jointly sent out invites to both candidates some two weeks in advance, but while Sirleaf quickly accepted, Weah did not. "There will be no debate. Weah's party said they would not be available because they were on the campaign trail," Sidi Diawara, the country director for the NDI in Monrovia, told IRIN on Tuesday. "Obviously it's a shame but we cannot force any candidate to take part." Contrasting candidates Ever since Weah declared himself in the race for the presidency, much has been made of his limited education and lack of political experience by both supporters and critics. Weah, whose rags-to-riches transformation via the football pitch has attracted masses of younger Liberian voters to his cause, says the fact that he is new to the political game means he has clean hands and can provide a clean break with the country's war-torn past. "I have never organised an insurgency, she did," Weah told reporters, in a dig at Sirleaf's early support of Charles Taylor's bid to topple president Samuel Doe in the 1980s. Sirleaf, whose resume boasts a degree from Harvard and stints at the World Bank and United Nations, says what's needed now, two years after the end of the country's 14-year civil war, is a wise head on experienced shoulders. "We are going to make sure that we have a government that responds to the people, a government that has the capacity, a government that has the knowledge, a government that has the intelligence," she told supporters at a rally. Sirleaf often delivers speeches without scripts and at her last rally before the October 11 poll, she circled the edge of a small podium, shoving reporters out of the way so that everyone in the crowd could see her. They reacted to every word of her long rousing speech. Weah conjured up even more supporters. At least 100,000 people took part in a morning march and thousands packed into the dusty field outside his party headquarters to hear his final speech of the campaign. But he sat at the back of the stage for more than an hour, and his appearance at the microphone, when it came, was brief. When unconscious girls were being dragged from the crowd onto the stage to be treated for heat exhaustion, he made no diversion from the planned text to call for calm. Privately, diplomats acknowledge Weah's dislike of public speaking and lack of proven political credentials but they are also quick not to discount him. His engagement with the thousands of former ex-combatants and his ability to inspire hope in a down-trodden nation are not to be dismissed, they say. And every ruler relies on a team around them, from US president George W. Bush on down. And this is something his Liberian namesake is swift to point out. "The government is not a one-man game and I have experts on my team," Weah told reporters before the first round ballot. And since then two high-profile members of Liberia's educated elite -- Winston Tubman who finished fourth in the presidential race and Varney Sherman who finished fifth -- have decided to support Team Weah.