Source: http://www.newdemocratnews.com/story.php?record_id=1770&sub=14
Scramble For Presidency Begins in the West Africa Nation Liberia
Ex rebel commander, now Senator Prince Johnson has announced he will face incumbent President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf as a major challenger for the country’s highest office.
Written By Festus Poquie
1/27/2010
The 2011 general and presidential elections euphora has surfaced with key war actors taking the lead in making known their intention for the presidency.
Ex rebel commander, now Senator Prince Johnson has announced he will face incumbent President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf as a major challenger for the country’s highest office.
The Senator has named his senate colleagues Abel Massaley(Grand Cape Mount) as his running mate, claiming they will raise over US$10m to ensure that the ruling Unity Party is booted out of office for “failing the people.”
“Those that she downsized [redundant workers] and those she had failed will be our supporters. If she does not step down as promised, we will give her and the Unity Party a political disgrace and defeat,” the former INPFL rebel commander said Monday minutes after the President had declared she will seek reelection, despite her 2005 promise that should not seek a second term.
President Sirleaf and Senator Johnson were members of the erstwhile National Patriotic Front of Liberia- a rebel movement that played a dominant role in the destruction of the state coupled with systematic killings and looting as documented in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s report.
Both seceded from then rebel leader Charles Taylor. Mr Johnson headed the breakaway rebels while Mrs Sirleaf abandoned the military campaign and return to political advocacy.
Both are named in the TRC report as financier and war lord respectively. President Sirleaf is being barred from holding public office for 30 years while the Senator Prince Johnson faces criminal prosecution for their respective role in the country’s civil war.
However, the President Monday cleared those obstacles when she implicitly froze the Independent Human Rights Commission’s legal authority to implement the TRC recommendations relative to public sanctions, criminal prosecution of war lords and economic criminals.
To make her stance legal, the President has proposed a legislation that will freeze the Commission’s authority relative to implementing those aspects of the TRC’s recommendations.
