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A Good News Story from Liberia [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2023-12-21
Last month Liberian President George Weah narrowly lost his reelection bid by less than 2% to opposition leader Joseph Boakai during their runoff election on November 14. But three days later he did something remarkable that has unfortunately become all too rare in this day and age — he actually conceded defeat!
Despite impassioned pleas from many of his supporters, he declined to contest the results and pledged a peaceful transfer of power to his political rival. Indeed, as reported in World Politics Review today:
A few days after his concession, Weah made two striking admissions. He intimated that his allies in the ruling Coalition for Democratic Change, or CDC, had wanted him to remain in office by force but that he had refused to cling to power in order to avoid another bout of violence and civil war in Liberia. Additionally, he asserted that some of his advisers had misled him into sanctioning crony business mining deals with foreign entities during his presidency. Strikingly, he has stated that he will initiate an investigation into his own government before Boakai’s inauguration on Jan. 22 to ascertain how mining concessions were allocated.
Imagine that, opening a corruption investigation into his own government’s actions instead of trying to use force to cling to power!
According to Liberian scholar Aaron Weah—no relationship to the president—Weah has been granted a “new lease on life in terms of his declining public image” due to his graceful concession to Boakai and is driven by the desire to undo years of negative publicity due to government mismanagement of public affairs during his tenure. Aaron Weah believes the president realized that his advisers had manipulated him to benefit themselves financially at the expense his reputation and the wellbeing of the Liberian people. As such, he is under no obligation to protect them politically or from criminal prosecution by the Liberian justice system. Aaron Weah argues that the leadership of the president’s CDC party underestimated the president’s integrity.
The contrast with our own seditious ex-president’s actions could hardly be starker.
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