LIBERIA: Bill Corcoran talks to Ellen Johnson Sirleaf who is likely to be Africa's first female head of state
From waiting tables to working as a World Bank economist; from a jail cell in Monrovia to enforced exile in the US, Liberia and Africa's first elected female head of state, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (67), is known as the "Iron Lady" for good reason.
The mother of four and grandmother of eight is a seasoned political operator who has drawn on her unwavering determination and keen sense of survival in repeated efforts to become president of the troubled west African country.
Although a surprise winner in the race for the presidency with former international football star George Weah, who easily won the first round of the election in October with huge support from the nation's youth, Johnson Sirleaf played the female card during her election to great effect.
Throughout the campaign the Harvard-educated economist argued that after more than 100 years of political mismanagement by male politicians it was time for a woman to take the helm of the country founded by white Americans for freed slaves, who declared its independence in 1846.
"I have been involved in Liberia's political struggle for 20 years and I have been challenging successive governments for their failure to respond to the plight of Liberians," Johnson Sirleaf said.
"Now it's time for a woman, and this time round Liberia has a woman of equal competence. Each time I challenged a past incumbent I knew this country needed change and structural transformation.
"Nothing has changed. I don't think anyone has the totality of experience to tackle Liberia's problems, but we can do things like restore electricity to the capital city in six months, that can be done as a start," she told the Irish Times during an interview at her Monrovia home in October.
Johnson Sirleaf has had a volatile political career. She first came to prominence in the late 1970s as finance minister under former president William Tolbert who was murdered following a coup in 1980 led by staff sergeant Samuel Doe.
In 1985 she was sentenced to 10 years in prison for speaking out against Doe's military regime, but was released after one year in detention and allowed to leave the country to take up a position with the World Bank.
But rather than leave Liberian politics behind, Johnson Sirleaf went on to support the country's next dictator, Charles Taylor, who formed a rebel group in 1989 whose sole purpose was to oust Doe from power.
When Taylor's dictatorial tendencies became apparent she left a position with the UN to stand against him in the country's flawed 1997 presidential election. The warlord won easily following threats of a return to civil war if any other candidate was elected.
But despite opposing Taylor, her earlier support of his efforts to dislodge Doe, the murderer of her former party leader William Tolbert, has left many suspicious of the motives behind Johnson Sirleaf's desire for power.
It has been suggested that her ultimate goal is to ensure the country's ruling elite, who thrived under Tolbert and claim her as one of their own, is returned to power.
But Johnson Sirleaf has insisted her support for the murderous Taylor was nothing more than a mistake.
"Look, it was under the Doe regime, and we were all suffering. Taylor came out of a progressive class which expressed all the right things: saying things like indigenous people should not be left behind.
"When he started his military movement he [ Taylor] said it was to bring about change, and we believed him.
"At the beginning we were fooled by him. Mr Taylor was a charismatic criminal. But he killed a few of my colleagues and when we found out what his true colours were we began to challenge him. I left my job in the UN to challenge him and I was forced into exile," she said.
Johnson Sirleaf says any government she forms will be inclusive because it will need cross-party support to be effective. She would like to see 50 per cent of Liberia's new parliament made up of women.
"If elected I will make a statement that will reach out to everyone. We are not going to start looking at skeletons in the closet as the expertise we have in the country must be brought to bear on the future," she said.
Johnson Sirleaf maintained that her biggest task as president would be to ensure that the country's fragile peace - supported by 15,000 UN troops, including 430 from Ireland - remained intact.
This would be done, she said, by providing a future for the nation's youth, many of whom carried out acts of extreme brutality as child soldiers during the civil war.
"We need to give guidance and assurances to the young people and that's what we are going to do: address their needs. We must get them into school; we must get them participating so that they will never be recruited for conflict again," she insisted.
Only three other women have ever been African heads of state, but all took up office following the premature demise of the incumbent president. None was elected.