“Days of imperial presidency over”--Sirleaf promises again
Just over a week before her second inauguration, Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf says the days of an imperial presidency are over in her country.
President Sirleaf, who last November won a runoff election boycotted by the main opposition CDC party candidate Winston Tubman, also said the days of an intrusive leadership and a domineering and threatening Chief Executive are over in Liberia.
But during the course of her six-year rule, some of her critics have said she has cult of the presidency has instead been entrenched.
In November 2010, Sirleaf’s Minister of Labour who resigned after she told her entire cabinet to go on compulsory leave, lawyer Tiawon Gongloe claimed some of her moves were “autocratic and undemocratic”.
It was the same pledge Africa’s first elected woman president made to the Liberian people some six years ago, when she won her first mandate:
She made this latest pledge against an imperial presidency, when she launched a National Policy on Decentralization and Local Governance.
“The launch is also meant to send a strong message that Liberia is on course to consolidating and deepening the country’s participatory democracy,” a statement from the Liberian presidency quotes Sirleaf as saying.
Speaking in Salala, Bong County, where the program was officially launched in the town of Salala in Liberia’s central Bong county, some 91km from the capital, Monrovia.
The Liberian leader spoke several measures taken over the last six years of her regime toward decentralization.
She cited the establishment of the County Development Fund, the Social Development Fund, community colleges, county agricultural offices and local health centers, among other things.
Meanwhile, massive preparations are going on in the Liberian capital for Sirleaf's inauguration ceremony, which is expected to be attended by a number of African and other heads of state and other top personalities, including US First Lady Mrs. Michelle Obama, according to local media reports this week.
Tweet
