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Liberian United Methodists look to election for change
LINK: Click to open full size version of image
A UMNS photo by Mary Miller

A Liberian election worker counts ballots by lantern light.
Oct. 20, 2005

By Mary Miller*

MONROVIA, Liberia (UMNS) — As their country emerges from years of civil war, Liberians are pinning their hopes for the future on the outcome of a run-off election set for November.

“We’re tired of fighting, we’re tired of war, we’re tired of poverty, we’re tired of ignorance, we’re tired of darkness!” boomed Bishop John Innis from the pulpit of S. Towah Nagbe United Methodist Church, two days before the West African country’s historic elections.

On Oct. 11, more than 1 million people — 74 percent of registered voters — went to the polls to participate in Liberia’s first democratic elections following 14 years of civil war.

The result will be a run-off election Nov. 8 between the two top vote-getters, soccer star George Weah and former Liberian finance official Ellen Johnson Sirleaf — both United Methodists. Neither of them drew the more than 50 percent of the votes needed to win.

LINK: Click to open full size version of image
A UMNS photo by Mary Miller

A young woman casts her ballot in Monrovia.
In 2003, a Comprehensive Peace Agreement was signed between Charles Taylor, longtime warlord turned president, and two warring factions whose struggles for power tore the country apart. Since then, a transitional government has administered the country, which has been held together by the presence of 15,000 United Nations peacekeepers.

While there has been no major fighting since the signing of the agreement and Taylor’s exile to Nigeria, the Liberian capital city of Monrovia remains without electricity or running water and more than 120,000 people are languishing in refugee and internally displaced camps throughout the region.

Once one of the most developed countries in Africa due to its wealth of natural resources, Liberia is deeply impoverished, with an illiteracy rate of 85 percent and unemployment levels almost as high.

“We as United Methodists are working to be a hope-giving people to our children,” said Innis, the head of the Liberian United Methodist Church, in an interview the day after the elections.

United Methodists throughout the country worked hard in the months leading up to the election to educate people in the most remote parts of the country on how to vote. The human rights department of the United Methodist Church held trainings and workshops on issues such as women’s participation in the political process and the importance of voting.

LINK: Click to open full size version of image
A UMNS photo by Kathy L. Gilbert

A campaign poster touts Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, one of two presidential candidates in the Nov. 8 run-off election.
Even before the signing of the 2003 peace treaty, the United Methodist Church, in cooperation with the Liberian Council of Churches, had engaged in everything from providing food to refugees and displaced persons to entering into dialogue with warlords in an effort to end the conflict.

“The church has been playing its role as a loving and caring community on behalf of God’s people, who are in desperate need of food, clothing, and shelter,” Innis remarked. “It is the responsibility of all Liberians to cooperate with the new president — whoever he or she may be — to use their skills for the development of Liberia.”

The question of who will be the new president is foremost in everyone’s minds. Twenty-two candidates vied for the presidency, and results continued to trickle in from the most remote parts of the country days after the election.

The candidates who ran for president included at least seven United Methodists, six of whom are active members of First United Methodist Church in Monrovia. William Roberts, a longtime member, said the church supported all of the United Methodist candidates but did not endorse any individual.

At church Oct. 16, three candidates attended services. Johnson Sirleaf was showered with deafening shouts of “Hallelujah!” and “Amen!” when the guest pastor for the day pointed her out in the crowd of more than 400 congregants.

LINK: Click to open full size version of image
A UMNS photo by Mary Miller

More than 1 million Liberians - 74 percent of registered voters - cast ballots Oct. 11.
Another presidential candidate, also the church’s director of music, Togba-Nah Tipoteh, described the relationship among the candidates at church as “very cordial.” Liberia has more than 800 United Methodist churches, with a membership of about 170,000.

Expectations are high for the new government. Corruption has been widespread in Liberian politics, leaving a few rich from illicit trade in diamonds, rubber and timber, while the majority of Liberians struggle to feed their families and most children have never gone to school.

Innis laments the life that his generation has provided for the young people of today. “We kept them backward, we gave them war and sent them into the bushes to fight and kill,” he said.

Now Liberians young and old are looking for a leader who can inspire positive change. “We in the church hope that God is ready and that we are ready to receive God’s blessings.”

*Miller is assistant program coordinator for the Democracy Program at the Carter Center.

News media contact: Linda Bloom, New York, (646) 369-3759 or newsdesk@umcom.org.

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