Tyson's ECOWAS Occasional Journal - Politics in West Africa

In Africa's first independent country , home to Africa's first single-party state ,  Africa's first female president is preparing for the country's first democratic transition of power in over 70 years, but is accused of improperly interfering in the  first round of voting . The election, whose first round was held October 10, can be correctly characterized as the first step toward "the first time in recent memory that a democratically elected Liberian president will hand power to a similarly elected head of state," since the last time such a transition happened was back in 1944. Liberia's history as an independent country began back in 1847, making it the first independent country on the continent. Prior to that it was a colony of the United States , settled by free-born black Americans and freed slaves. Over the next hundred years, presidential transfers of power occurred on a regular basis, although the True Whig Party dominated politics fr

Protestors have been active all year. The opposition says that over a million people in the 7-million population country have participated in anti-government protests. That's probably an exaggeration, but they likely number over 100,000, which is a big number for a small country. To set the stage - thousands protested in 2014 against President Faure Gnassingbé seeking a 3rd term, and when the president won re-election in 2015, the opposition disputed the results.  Here is some of what happened in 2017 - I might be missing some important events: In February, hundreds protested against the government shutting down two independent broadcasters.  In late February/early March, civil society groups, unions, teachers, taxi drivers, etc. protested and went on strike over increased gas prices and delays of compensations payments to victims of government violence from 1958-2005. One person was killed by the police breaking up the protests. By July , protestors numbered over 1