BriefingAfrica

Liberia’s ‘Iron Lady’ Praised at Home and Abroad, Though Some Dissent Remains

Liberia’s ‘Iron Lady’ Praised at Home and Abroad, Though Some Dissent Remains

MONROVIA, Liberia -- To Liberians, she is President Ellen, or "our iron lady." Her supporters call her a difference-maker and a straight talker, a leader who says what she's going to do and then does it. Those qualities have inspired admiration and even love for President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Africa's first female president.

"She love the country," Roland Watson, a driver for an aid agency, said. "I think she want to make things happen in this country."

The same cannot be said about Liberia's former presidents, who presided over 14 years of civil war that claimed 250,000 lives and impoverished much of the country.

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