The crowd roars and people swoon as the presidential candidate bounds onto the stage, striding on the powerful legs that propelled him from the slums of Monrovia to international soccer stardom. George Weah hardly glances at the adoring throng. He offers no wave nor victory sign. He delivers his speech in a monotone, reading from notes. His awkward style may be one of the reasons he could win Tuesday's runoff election. Liberians have had enough of polished politicos looting their country's wealth and spilling its blood. And if this election goes well, voters will have finally closed the book on 14 years of civil war and lifted their country into the spreading ranks of African democracies.That Weah has little formal education hardly matters to his fans. What counts is that he put Liberia on the world sports map, playing for European professional teams that are soccer's equivalent of the New England Patriots. So he highlights his populist strengths, stressing his poverty-stricken past and lack of education to jab at Liberia's political class, which has fielded some of Africa's most corrupt leaders. "Education will only take you so far without honor," he tells the crowd of more than 50,000 supporters, many of them illiterate, unemployed war veterans. "The honest man is the only true one."
Weah (rhymes with player) and his rival, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, represent opposite sides of the great divide that has run through the republic since it was founded by freed American slaves in the 1800s. Johnson-Sirleaf, 67, a Harvard graduate, former finance minister and international banker, belongs to the slave-descended class that ran Liberia until 1980. Weah, 39, is one of the seething underclass of indigenous Africans that grew up under the so-called Americo-Liberian establishment. In the first round of voting, Weah took 29 percent of the vote to Johnson-Sirleaf's 19 percent. If he wins Tuesday's deciding round, he would cap an arc of success that is the opposite of Liberia's descent into anarchy and strife.
But James Smith, a 35-year-old Monrovian, is skeptical. "Having a freshman president who will learn on the job is risky for this nation _ we are saying it loud and clear," Smith said. "Weah needs to learn the principles of leadership at community level first before thinking of the nation's highest office."
When Weah was born in 1966, Liberia was rich from gems, timber and rubber. But while the elite ate oysters beside swimming pools in swanky hotels, Weah grew up kicking a ball around the dirt patches of Monrovia's slums In 1980, an illiterate master sergeant, Samuel Doe, had the president and 13 Cabinet ministers killed. Johnson-Sirleaf was spared death but was jailed and then forced into exile. While Doe grew corrupt and hated, Weah played for Liberian teams, including one called Young Survivors. He got his big international break at 22, joining Monaco. At home, a warlord named Charles Taylor launched an insurgency on Christmas Eve, 1989. As Doe was killed and Liberia fell into chaos, Weah went on to play for Paris-St. Germain and then AC Milan, where he earned the best-player title of 1995.
Marco Simone, a former Milan teammate, says he admires Weah's change of career. "Liberia is a difficult country to head, with many problems to solve," he told The Associated Press. "I would wish him to be the head of a less-complicated country, but his decision not to live where life is easier, and go back home instead, is a sign of his humanity."
In a country of 3 million with 80 percent unemployment, the story of this married father of four, who sometimes dandles his youngest daughter on his knee at campaign rallies, is inspirational. He may be a ghetto child, but "that should not block his chances of leading his people," said Junior Sesay, a 19-year-old student. "Maybe that will enable him to know the danger of a government allowing ghettos to exist in society."