The Politics of Liberia takes place in a framework of a presidential representative democratic republic modeled on the government of the United States, whereby the president is the head of state and head of government; unlike the United States, however, Liberia is a unitary state as opposed to a federation and has a pluriform multi-party system rather than the two-party system that characterizes US politics. Executive power is exercised by the government. Legislative power is vested in both the government and the two chambers of the legislature.
Prince Yormie Johnson is a Liberian politician and former warlord who has served as a senator for Nimba County since 2006. A former rebel leader, Johnson played a prominent role in the First Liberian Civil War.
Joseph Jenkins Roberts was an American merchant who emigrated to Liberia in 1829, where he became a politician. Elected as the first (1848–1856) and seventh (1872–1876) president of Liberia after independence, he was the first man of African descent to govern the country, serving previously as governor from 1841 to 1848. He later returned to office following the 1871 Liberian coup d'état. Born free in Norfolk, Virginia, Roberts emigrated as a young man with his mother, siblings, wife, and child to the young West African colony. He opened a trading firm in Monrovia and later engaged in politics.
The True Whig Party (TWP), also known as the Liberian Whig Party (LWP), is the oldest political party in Liberia and Africa as a whole. Founded in 1869 by primarily darker-skinned Americo-Liberians in rural areas, its historic rival was the Republican Party. Following the decline of the latter, it dominated Liberian politics from 1878 until 1980. The nation was virtually governed as a one-party state under the TWP, although opposition parties were never outlawed.
The First Liberian Civil War was the first of two civil wars within the West African nation of Liberia which lasted between 1989 and 1997. President Samuel Doe's regime of totalitarianism and widespread corruption led to calls for withdrawal of the support of the United States, by the late 1980s. The National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) led by Charles Taylor invaded Liberia from the Ivory Coast to overthrow Doe in December 1989 and gained control over most of the country within a year. Doe was captured and executed by the Independent National Patriotic Front of Liberia (INPFL), a splinter faction of the NPFL led by Prince Johnson, in September 1990. The NPFL and INPFL fought each other for control of the capital city, Monrovia and against the Armed Forces of Liberia and pro-Doe United Liberation Movement of Liberia for Democracy. Peace negotiations and foreign involvement led to a ceasefire in 1995 but fighting continued until a peace agreement between the main factions occurred in August 1996. Taylor was elected President of Liberia following the 1997 Liberian general election and entered office in August of the same year.
Ruth Sando Fahnbulleh Perry was a Liberian politician. She served as the interim Chairman of the Council of State of Liberia from 3 September 1996 until 2 August 1997, following the First Liberian Civil War. After eleven international peace attempts between 1990 and 1995 to end the civil war in Liberia, the attempts appeared to succeed. The interim Council of State consisted of a civilian chairman, as well as members of warring factions: Charles Taylor, United Liberation Movement of Liberia for Democracy-K leader Alhaji Kromah, Liberia Peace Council leader George Boley, and two other civilians.
Barringer Academy of the Arts & Humanities, is a four-year comprehensive public high school serving students in ninth through twelfth grades in Newark, in Essex County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey, operating as part of the Newark Public Schools. Some consider it to be the third oldest public high school in the United States. The school has been accredited by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Elementary and Secondary Schools since 1981.
The Second Liberian Civil War was a civil war in the West African nation of Liberia that lasted from 1999 to 2003.
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is a Liberian politician who served as the 24th president of Liberia from 2006 to 2018. Sirleaf was the first elected female head of state in Africa.
Milton Nathaniel Barnes is a Liberian diplomat, politician and member of the Liberian Destiny Party (LDP). In early 2022, he announced his intention to run as an independent candidate in the 2023 Liberian presidential election.
General elections were held in Liberia on 11 October 2011, with a second round of the presidential election on 8 November. The presidency, as well as all seats in the House of Representatives and half of the seats in the Senate, were up for election. The election was overseen by the National Elections Commission (NEC).
Leymah Roberta Gbowee is a Liberian peace activist responsible for leading a women's non-violent peace movement, Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace that helped bring an end to the Second Liberian Civil War in 2003. Her efforts to end the war, along with her collaborator Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, helped usher in a period of peace and enabled a free election in 2005 that Sirleaf won. Gbowee and Sirleaf, along with Tawakkul Karman, were awarded the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize "for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women's rights to full participation in peace-building work."
Antoinette Louise Padmore Tubman was the wife of the Liberian politician William S. Tubman and the First Lady of Liberia from 1948 to 1971.
Dorothy Harriet Eugenia Musuleng Cooper was a Liberian educator, politician and the first woman to serve as Foreign Minister in Liberia. She was born at Arthington, Liberia and obtained her B.S. and M.S. from College of West Africa and San Francisco State University respectively. She worked as a school teacher between graduation and high school and matriculation in 1964 in San Francisco in 1964, curriculum development in the Ministry of Education, and principal of Cuttington University College. She was an education minister in Charles Taylor's shadow government from 1990 to 1993 in the National Patriotic Reconstruction Assembly Government
Sie-A-Nyene Gyapay Yuoh is a Liberian judge and politician who currently serves as chief justice of the Supreme Court of Liberia and was nominated on August 23, 2022. She began to serve after the retirement of former chief justice Francis Korkpor on September 27, 2022.
Americo-Liberian people, are a Liberian ethnic group of African American, Afro-Caribbean, and liberated African origin. Americo-Liberians trace their ancestry to free-born and formerly enslaved African Americans who emigrated in the 19th century to become the founders of the state of Liberia. They identified themselves as Americo-Liberians.
Gbehzohngar Milton Findley is a Liberian politician and businessman. He is a former President Pro Tempore of the Liberian Senate and also the Minister of Foreign Affairs in the administration of President Weah until 28 July 2020.
Miatta Fahnbulleh is a Liberian singer and social activist. As of May 2017, she was the interim coordinator of Concerned Citizens to Protect the Constitution.
Katie Ann Meyler is an American activist who is the founder of the More Than Me Foundation, an organization that works to educate young women in Liberia in the midst of the West African Ebola virus epidemic. She has been recognized as one of the Ebola fighters chosen as the 2014 Time Person of the Year and won at the 2015 Shorty Awards for Best Activist. However, she has received criticism for failing to protect the young women in her care from sexual abuse by her lover, an accusation which was extensively researched and reported on in 2018 by Time Magazine and ProPublica. Meyler resigned from the organization as a result of the investigation.
Jane Rose Waring Roberts emigrated as a child with her free African-American family to the Colony of Liberia, where she was educated and grew up as a member of the Americo-Liberian community.
