Ellen Sirleaf Interview (page: 4 / 8) Nobel Prize for Peace	Print Interview

Charles Taylor's regime in Liberia eventually disintegrated. How did he finally relinquish power?

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf: As you know, Taylor was taken out of the country by the West African leaders. He went into exile in Nigeria for some time, and subsequently, he was under an indictment by the UN Special Court for crimes committed in Sierra Leone, and ultimately the Nigerians turned him over to the United Nations, which took him to the Netherlands. He's on trial in The Hague right now.

What do you think will happen?

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf: Oh, I don't know. I have no idea. We watched the proceedings of the trial and the different testimonies that are going on. How the judges will finally come out, I really don't know. I just hope he doesn't come back to Liberia, that's all.

In 2005 you became a presidential candidate yourself. What prompted you to become a candidate for president yourself?

Get the Flash Player to see this video. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf: I was a candidate in '97. I didn't win. I felt I'd earned the stripes and I could compete as effectively as anybody else. I'd gone through all the trials and tribulations of political life and also had enough, I believe, international exposure, professionalism. And also, I didn't think there was anybody who could be as competitive, given my experience, background in some things. I thought I was a formidable candidate, and I proved to be right.

[ Key to Success ] Preparation

Could you tell us about your opponent, George Weah?

Get the Flash Player to see this video. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf: Mr. Weah was an icon in sports. He was a sports hero. He had won the football of the year for Europe, for Africa several times. He was the idol of the young people, and our nation is very young. So he really was a very, very strong candidate. Nobody figured we could beat him, because he was strong, and like I say, he's revered by the young people. But we figured we could find where the weaknesses were, and the weaknesses were that he didn't have an education. He hadn't really done enough schooling, and we played on that, on the basis that most of our market women sit in the sun and rain to send their children to school to get an education, and certainly they wanted something better for people to aspire to. And the people underestimated the power of women. You know, grassroots women who mobilized because they felt for the first time a woman was competitive enough, with the courage and the competence and the background to do so, and they mobilized. Now Mr. Weah was a very strong candidate, no doubt. In the first round he came out ahead of everybody, but clearly he didn't have a clean win.

What would he have had to do to win? Have a clear majority?

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf: He would have had to have 50 percent plus one. That's what our constitution requires: 50 percent plus one. So he didn't, and the constitution says that if you don't get 50 percent plus one then the two persons with the highest number of votes go into a runoff. I was second under him, so we both went into a runoff. But we had great strategy in our runoff. We ran a door-to-door campaign and the women rose to the challenge.

Perhaps the women of America could learn something from your experience. What about men? Didn't you need the votes of men as well to get to 50 plus one?

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf: No doubt. And some of the young people too, even though, like I said, he was the idol of the young. But that was mainly the street kids, the uneducated, because the university students felt differently, and many of them rallied to us. The university students felt that an education did matter, and to be able to run a country you had to have a certain level of knowledge. So we were able to get them to be a part of our campaign.

Given the two civil wars that had transpired, all the violence and the economic freefall over 25 years, this would seem to be the most difficult job in the world. Yet you obviously wanted it very much.

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf: Simply because I do believe in the potential of our country, and I felt if anyone else had the fortitude and the capability and the international contact to be able to make it work, that I could. I still believe in that, and I think the progress we've made in these two years does support that view.

What were your first priorities for healing the woulds of your country, both economically and socially?

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf: To really have an inclusive government, first of all.

Get the Flash Player to see this video. You know, I could have taken the winner-take-all position, and I'm still criticized by my own party today because of that. But if you look into my cabinet, you'll see people who were presidential candidates, vice presidential candidates, leading people in the other opposition parties and whatnot. I was the first one to send a signal that no matter who won, that the country needed the participation and the support of everybody. Some of the other things that will enable us to achieve our objective, we're still making small progress. Not enough, like jobs for the young people, education for the young people that were affected, thousands and thousands of them. We did complete what is called a DDR -- or Demobilization Disarmament Reintegration program -- of over 100,000 of them. But still, getting them into school, getting them skills, getting them jobs, is still an ongoing process and still a challenge.

What is the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative?

Get the Flash Player to see this video. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf: That's just ensuring that the resources that come from our mines are properly accounted for, properly used, with the public being fully informed on what those resources are and where those resources are applied, show the proper budgetary process and whatnot. And the process is monitored by a civil society group to make sure that the checks and balances -- the information comes from the government institutions concerned, but that information has to flow to this group that comprises civil society people. We also asked the companies involved to participate, so that they can give the information directly to the watchdog group, and we willingly joined it, because it helps us to make our commitment to accountability and transparency. We also, even though they say "extractive industries," which are mainly the mines -- we have iron ore, and gold and diamond -- but we also added forestry, by our own voluntary action, because forestry had been a source of the misuse of resources in the past, and became part of what fueled the regional war through using those resources for arms.

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