Liberia president vows to run for second term in 2011

Liberia president to run in 2011 vote

MONROVIA, Liberia — Liberia’s president said Monday she will run for re-election in 2011 despite a campaign promise to only serve one term.

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf made the announcement in an annual message to lawmakers Monday.

Sirleaf has been a darling of the international community ever since 2005, when she became Africa’s first democratically elected female president and turned around a nation that had been ravaged by civil wars for years.

The conflict, which lasted from 1989 until 2003, left about 200,000 people dead and displaced half the country’s population of 3 million. The country — created to settle freed American slaves in 1847 — is still struggling to maintain a fragile peace with the help of U.N. peacekeepers.

“Whatever I do, I will do it for you, the people,” the 71-year-old Harvard-trained economist said. “Let us travel the road together, knowing that the God who brought us this far will not leave us.”