You need Java to see this applet.

Very few politicians possess the capacity to endure incarcerations let alone take on warlords without an army of their own. Fewer still, can withstand or survive treason charges decreed by two dictatorial regimes, in Africa where assassinations, disappearances and organised accidents for political opponents are taken for granted.

In her long tortuous route to the Executive Mansion (State House) in Monrovia, Liberia`s Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf has seen it all.

With an intimidating track record in public service, including serving as Africa`s first female Finance Minister, President of the Liberian Bank for Development and Investment, Assistant Administrator, UNDP, and having held senior positions at Citibank and the World Bank, the Harvard University trained Public Administrator, has brought a depth of character, consistency and authenticity to women`s empowerment.

The unassuming 67-year-old grandmother of six, is often reluctant to claim the firsts that have defined her life, insisting that Liberia, Africa`s first republic founded by American freed slaves in 1847, has a history of "equal opportunity" for women.

So, even when she is sworn in as Africa`s first elected female President, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf could still maintain she is only following a tradition, after all, a Liberian, Angie Brooks-Randolph, was the first woman to become President of the male-dominated United Nations General Assembly.

Another woman, Ruth Perry, also served for more than a year as un-elected Interim Liberian leader before the 1997 presidential elections.

Even so, it takes a courageous woman to tread Africa`s political minefield dreaded even by men.

A pioneer member of the International Institute for Women in Political Leadership and the Liberian Committee for Relief, Rehabilitation and Development, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf was also a founding member of the Liberian Action Party (LAP), which challenged the military regime of the late President Samuel Doe in the 1985 elections.

Political observers insist that LAP actually won that poll.

Before then, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, a Finance Minister in the William R. Tolbert government, toppled by Master Sergeant Doe in the 1980 military coup, was first jailed in July 1985 as she and others tried to register LAP.

After the October 1985 controversial elections, she was again imprisoned following a foiled coup, and she was only released in July 1986.

A flip side to Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf`s largely unblemished record and unwavering support for democracy in Liberia was her much-talked about support for Charles Taylor in the rebel war he launched in December 1989 to oust Doe.

As a professed democrat, who has invested so much of her time, energy resources and even risked her life to defend this universal principle, it is one of the contradictions of politics that she could be linked with support for a violent change of government.

But the truth is that Doe had turned himself into a maximum dictator such that Liberians, apart from Doe and his cronies, would support any means of getting rid of the military junta that camouflaged itself as a civilian government.

Also, it would have taken clairvoyance to foretell that Taylor would follow Doe`s example or even prove a worse dictator.

However, when Taylor showed his true colour, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf was among the few that stood up to his authoritarianism.

Unlike many Liberians in the Diaspora, or those who chose to watch the destruction of their country from a safe distance, she remained in constant touch with her troubled home country.

Tired of paying regular but risky home visits, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf left her well-paid UN job to return to give warlord Taylor a political fight, with no army of her own.

As the only female candidate in the 1997 presidential elections, she emerged the runner-up to Taylor, who won that poll for no better credential than being the commander of the biggest rebel force in the country that time.

In retrospect, the theory that he who broke it should fix it proved a monumental catastrophe and many Liberians believe they committed a political suicide by voting for the man who killed their "ma and pa."

Even with his awesome power from the barrel of the gun, Taylor, now exiled in Nigeria, dreaded Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf like plague. At a point he declared her personae non grata and slapped treason charges on her.

Still, the undaunted Amazon, who should normally be considered a "Congo" and not a "Country" breed in the typical Liberian parlance (of Americo- Liberia and settler descendants), would always go back to Liberia, where she had a flourishing network of NGOs, and enjoyed tremendous grassroots support including from the market women groups.

With former Tanzanian leader Mwalimu Julius Nyerere as one of her role models, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, with all her high-profile western education has remained a down-to-earth lady, with "the sensibility of a woman and mother of four men," to undertake the enormous reconstruction of a country devastated by 14 years of a bloody civil war that killed more than 250,000 and displaced hundreds of thousands more, who are only just trying to rebuild their broken lives.

From her eloquent record of achievements that earned her Liberia`s highest civilian national honour of the Grand Commander Star of African Redemption, as well as the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute Freedom Award and the Ralph Bunche International Leadership Award, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf`s many admirers believe she is only interested in serving her country at the highest level to help mobilise her compatriots and unleash the greatest impact, using her wide international connections.

Fired by this determination, coming second to former World football star George Weah in the 22-candidate pack, at the 11 October first round of the presidential race, apparently brought the best in the organisational ability of the veteran politician.

While the Weah camp thought they had the game in the bag, close associates said Ellen Sirleaf-Johnson extended her outreach, using an army of volunteer foot soldiers to telling advantage.

With the elections over, the mammoth challenge of rebuilding a country haunted by civil war, with thousands of ex-combatants around, and saddled with three billion US-dollar foreign debt, unemployment of over 80 percent and literacy rate of just 20 percent, the picture could not be more graphic.

But Liberia is not zero-poor. The country of less than four million people is still endowed with huge natural resources, including diamond, rubber, iron ore and timber, which must be harnessed for the benefit of the long-suffering population.

With reconciliation as the key word, this is hardly the time for recrimination if the national war wound is to heal.

The Transitional administration led by Gyude Bryant, proved an unmitigated disaster with millions of dollars in donor support disappearing into thin air, leaving Liberia a desolate shadow its once vibrant self.

For the new inclusive government from January 2006, all hands must be on deck but under a near incorruptible leadership accountable to the people to attract and sustain much needed international support.

Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf certainly has her work cut out. She has already been nicknamed the Liberian "Iron Lady," but in the true African context, the grand mother of six should represent not just a beacon of hope for women`s development in a marginalized continent, but she must prove herself a tested Lioness in Africa`s thick political forest.

Source: Angola Presse