When footballer-turned-politician George Weah is inaugurated on January 22 as Liberia's 25th president, he will face the challenging task of reviving a resilient yet deeply divided, poorly managed, post-war country.
Weah was the frontrunner among 20 candidates who ran in the first round of elections last October 10. After an electoral litigation battle that dragged on for weeks, he won the December 26 runoff with 61.5 percent of the vote. Though turnout was low - 55.8 percent compared with 75.2 percent in October - Weah's die-hard followers delivered his most decisive victory.
But the euphoria will be short-lived if he repeats the mistakes of his predecessors, including Africa's first elected woman head of state - Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.
