The InterDependent

Incumbent President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf looks poised to reclaim leadership of Liberia today, having won 90.8 percent of the votes in a second-round election boycotted by her opponent. After a tense election marred by political violence and low turnout, the Nobel laureate has promised to make reconciliation her top priority; speculation is rife that she may include members of the leading opposition party into her new government.

Yet as she tries to reunite this tiny West African country, still recovering from more than a decade of civil war, the new president may find one disenfranchised group most pressing of all: the country’s youth. Sirleaf may have won the election with a commanding lead, but she cannot yet claim a strong mandate from the many young people clamoring for a future that has yet to materialize. Frustrated with the slow pace of chance, many youth turned their support to opposition candidate Winston Tubman, a former U.N. diplomat and the nephew of a former Liberian president.

“I think what we’ve seen in [the elections] should send a very serious message to the current government,” says Oscar Bloh, chairman of the country’s Elections Coordinating Committee, a body that organized civil society groups to monitor the elections. “Either something is wrong with the government and its policies or something is wrong with the youth.

“These elections have been determined largely by young people, and [they] are very much divided,” Bloh continues. “Those who are in school tended to vote for the Unity Party [of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf… those unemployed tended to vote for [the opposition] Congress for Democratic Change. This is a very serious message, and I would want to see a major policy shift in how priorities [regarding youth people] are being identified.”

Now almost a decade after the country’s 14-year civil war came to an end, the situation could hardly be more pressing. Millions of young people—approximately half the country’s population—who grew up amid strife are now struggling to find opportunities outside of conflict. But the temptation to return to violence is stronger than ever. Combatants from the neighboring Ivory Coast recruited from Liberia throughout the spring, during a political crisis there; weapons floated across the border. And just a few countries northward, youth disenchantment is reshaping global politics as the Arab spring displaces long-time leaders in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and threatens regimes elsewhere.

The warning to governments in general—and Liberia in particular—is clear: the youth want the chance to build their futures, rather than tear their countries' apart.

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Liberia’s youth are among the most disfranchised voters in a society where poverty is pervasive. Unemployment rates across the country hover at 80 percent, according to the U.N. Development Program’s planning documents for 2008 to 2012. Youth rates, while not officially reported, are widely acknowledged to be even higher.

Part of the problem is education; while four-fifths of children enroll in primary school, less than one in three children will ever make it to high school. “A majority of Liberian youth between the ages of 15-35 .... have neither the requisite education, nor the technical and entrepreneurial skills to obtain gainful employment in both the private and public sectors,” notes the Joint Program on Youth Unemployment and Empowerment, operated by the United Nations and the Liberian government.

Opportunities are also lacking. Despite a surge as reconstruction inches along, the formal economy in particular remains infinitesimally small with the government providing many of the jobs. Meanwhile, a global financial crisis compounded matters, exacerbate the youth predicament as foreign aid budgets, upon which Liberia heavily relies, have shrunk dramatically since 2008.

While none of these issues are new, in the run up to elections, these issues became even more pronounced. With a chance to look back at President Sirleaf’s first term, youth in Monrovia’s neighborhoods and shantytowns often complained that little had changed. When I visited the country in March, I heard complaints that the president had focused on blockbuster reforms such as debt relief and winning international assistance, leaving their everyday lives untouched by. Such youth voters, aged 18 to 27, make up 40 percent of the total electoral roll.

On the eve of the second round election, those frustrations hit a peak when violence broke out at an opposition rally brimming with young protestors. The Liberian police fired tear gas and weapons into the crowd in response. As many as eight are said to have died, and another 84 were arrested, though they have since been released. When voting took place on November 8, a heavy calm hung over Monrovia, and many voters stayed home for fear of further violence. A mere 37.4 percent of registered voters showed up to the polls.

In a call with reporters on Friday, Nat Walker, a member of the Government of Liberia's Peacebuilding Office and co-chair of its Early Warning and Early Response Working Group, seemed to suggest that it was youth who were behind the violence. “[We need] to insure that when such violence occurs, the too many disgruntled people who we have on the street will not go on to the side of whoever wants to use them [for violence] just because of their [economic] situation.”

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This isn’t the first time that Sirleaf’s government will have to work hard to appease youth voters. When she first took office, Africa’s first woman president narrowly beat George Weah, a popular football star who had lured huge numbers of youth into his camp. Weah was again running this time, as a vice-presidential candidate to Tubman. A technocrat who had lived for years abroad during the country’s civil war, Sirleaf stands in sharp contrast to this populist appeal.

The government was also aware of the threat of youth unrest, should their concerns go unaddressed. “The vast majority of Liberian affected by the war are the youths, a large number of whom now feel alienated, frustrated and vulnerable,” the country’s youth ministry concluded in 2006.

During her first term, Sirleaf began several programs with international assistance to try and ameliorate the youths’ dilemma. In September 2010, she launched a $16 million program with the help of the World Bank to try and create immediate employment for young workers as well as improve training opportunities.

The United Nations also cited youth as a priority, and began to work extensively in the sector across its agencies. The U.N. High Commission for Refugees drafted an extensive strategy aimed at helping young refugees and internally displaced—some of them ex-combatants—reintegrate into society. UNICEF, the U.N. Children’s agency, meanwhile worked hand-in-hand with the government to try and boost school enrollment rates as well as the quality of education.

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Yet the challenges that await the new administration are daunting—and potentially explosive. In an interview with UN radio on November 10, Sirleaf said that the country needed to transition from emergency humanitarian measures to a long-term development strategy. She vowed to continue to work with the international community and expressed a hope that partners would maintain solidarity as well. “UN agencies will play a very important role in all the different spheres of operation that will add to our capacity, that will supplement our resources, so we can scale up the development work we are doing to be able to respond to the basic needs of the people.”

Should tensions grew, rather than subsiding, security could once again be of concern—just as the U.N. peacekeeping mission, UNMIL, begins a drawdown in 2012. The mission, once the world’s largest deployment of peacekeepers, today boasts some 7,775 troops and 1,300 police to supplement Liberian security forces.

Electoral clashes were a visceral demonstration not only of the threat to stability but also the sometimes frail ability of Liberian police to address security concerns. When the November 7 clashes broke out in Monrovia, UNMIL dispatched units of police as well as a helicopter to monitor the situation.

The Carter Center’s electoral observation mission also noted in its preliminary report on the run-off that the local police reacted inappropriately during protests, and only at UNMIL’s intervention did they moderate their conduct. “Eyewitness accounts and video strongly suggest that the LNP used excessive force and fired weapons on unarmed persons, resulting in several deaths,” the report explains. “Peacekeeping forces deployed by the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) played a critical role in restraining the LNP and restoring order.”

Sirleaf has been quick to vow reconciliation and investigations into the violence that marred the run-up to the second round of voting. Her opponent, Tubman, also expressed a willingness to work with the new administration on Friday.

“Let us remember, my Fellow Citizens, that this country belongs to all of us,” Sirleaf told voters just a day before they went to the polls on November 8. “When we wake up Wednesday morning, with this election behind us, we will all still be Liberians – one nation, with one history, one culture, one future.”