MONROVIA – Liberia’s new president, Joseph Boakai, was once sworn into office Monday after his narrow win in a November election. Boakai, who at age 79 is the rustic’s oldest sitting head of state, promised to unite and rescue Africa’s oldest republic from its financial woes.
“Partisanship must give way to nationalism,” Boakai advised voters and international delegation participants who attended his inauguration rite in Monrovia, Liberia’s capital. He indexed making improvements to adherence to the guideline of legislation, preventing corruption and renewing “the lost hope” of voters as his priorities.
The rite, alternatively, ended impulsively after Boakai, who wore conventional Liberian apparel for the instance, started to display indicators of bodily misery whilst talking. Officials led him clear of the rostrum after he unsuccessfully attempted to proceed his deal with.
A spokesperson for Boakai’s political birthday party stated the president’s weak spot was once brought about via warmth and had not anything to do with his well being.
Boakai has pushed aside considerations about his age, arguing that it got here with a wealth of revel in and achievements that would receive advantages the rustic.
He received a tight run-off election to defeat Liberia’s youngest-ever president, George Weah. Public goodwill towards soccer legend-turned-politician Weah waned as he neared the tip of his first six-year time period. Critics accused him of now not enjoyable marketing campaign guarantees to repair Liberia’s unwell economic system, stamp out corruption and to make certain justice for sufferers of the rustic’s back-to-back civil wars between 1989 and 2003.
Boakai, who earned a college level in trade management, has been energetic in Liberia’s nationwide politics for the reason that Eighties, when he served because the agriculture minister. Starting in 2006, he spent 12 years as vice president below Africa’s first democratically elected feminine chief, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.
He misplaced his first run for the presidency in 2017 to Weah, who took over from Sirleaf within the West African country’s first democratic switch of energy for the reason that finish of its civil wars. Boakai touted his 2d presidential marketing campaign as a rescue challenge to loose Liberians from what he described as Weah’s failed management.
His guarantees however, any sure adjustments from the new Liberian chief are most probably to come slowly making an allowance for how other Boakai’s time table is from his predecessors, in accordance to Ibrahim Nyei, a researcher and political analyst at Liberia’s Ducor Institute for Social and Economic Research.
“It is not going to be a walk in the park for the Boakai administration,” Nyei stated. “The new leadership will have to review concessions agreements signed by Weah and Ellen’s governments to establish which one works in the interest of Liberia (and) seek new international partners that will help address some of the country’s challenges.”
Monrovia resident Ansu Banban Jr. stated he thinks Boakai will fortify the lives of voters. “I do not expect anything less than good from the president,” Banban stated.
Boakai has a public recognition as a “hardworking and humble politician” whose persona and political revel in recommend he “may show more dedication toward combating corruption than previous administrations,” stated Zoe McCathie, a political and safety analyst at Africa-focused Signal Risk Consulting.
“Nevertheless, it is unlikely that Boakai will be able to fully address this matter due to the entrenched nature of corruption within Liberian politics,” McCathie said. “Achieving sustained economic growth is expected to be an uphill battle for the Boakai administration (because) of the Liberian economy’s lack of diversification and dependence on imports.”
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Asadu reported from Abuja, Nigeria
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