Liberia: the 2011 elections and building peace in the fragile state

Liberia holds its second post-war presidential and legislative elections in October 2011. The first, held in 2005 was the first free and fair elections in the country’s long history and it ushered in Africa’s first elected female president. Since then Liberia, previously wracked by bloody petty wars, has been largely stable, though very fragile.

The 2011 elections will probably be just as important as the one in 2005 and will determine when the UN, which still maintains about 8000 troops in the country, will finally withdraw. No doubt, the outcome of the polls will also determine whether the country maintains the promising trajectory it has had since 2006. Whatever the outcome of the elections, however, it is important that international players – primarily ECOWAS, AU and UN maintain a steady focus on the three areas that the Liberian government has identified as critical to sustained peace building.

The paper provides the following findings:

• A multitude of tendencies are emerging, and not all are supportive of the creation of a sense of nationhood and the development of democratic institutions
  
• No one who had known Liberia previously would fail to be impressed by the enormous strides in infrastructural development, principally, but also in the general sense of safety and optimism that Liberia has made under Sirleaf
  
• a key element of the 2003 Comprehensive Peace Accord (CPA), which ended Liberia’s wars, was an agreement to set up a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) to provide a forum that will address issues of impunity
  
• in negotiating Liberia’s membership of the UN Peace buiding Commission joining Sierra Leone and Burundi the government rightly emphasised, as top priority, the rebuilding of the Justice sector.
  

The paper also provides the following conclusions:

• it is not at all clear at this point whether periodic elections provide a boost for peace building, though the point is doubtless academic. It is worth reflecting on, however, whether such a commitment serves any useful purpose, and should continue to be a benchmark of UN or other multilateral process of peace building
  
• in view of the immensity of the challenges that Liberia still face, and given that there will be enormous pressure on the UN to withdraw from the country after the elections, Liberian and international officials have approached the African Union (AU) to expand its mission in the country to a fully functioning political office with military and police capacities.