Comment - The Challenges For President Doe
His explosive and unpredictable nature have made four years of his rule in Liberia the most momentous in the history of the country.
The obvious relish and enjoyment in his position as Liberia's Head of State made many people very sceptical about his protestations that he would indeed hand over power to a constitutionally elected government. To start with, it was the timetable that was being tampered with when Mr Doe started on his teasing game.
Many people doubted that he would indeed stick to the announced timetable and suspected that he would find some stratagem to avoid handing over or at the very least postpone it as much as possible.
Everytime that some new coup plot was announced, it enforced the suspicion that it was all part of the grand design to keep Mr Doe in power and push further into a future unknown that day when Liberia will be ruled by those who have been elected by the people.
And then it became a guessing game about whether Mr Doe will stand for elections himself or not. His critics were convinced that by election date, if it ever came, there would be only one unopposed candidate for the presidency in the person of the Commander-in-Chief Doe. His friends and those who had the job of tidying up after him said that was cynicism at its worst, pointing out that the man had, after all, not even expressed a wish to stand for elections.
Up to the eve of the day he declared his candidature, members of his government were still protesting that he had any such plans. Like the earlier misgivings about a possible manipulation of the time, for a return to civil rule, the Guidelines for the Registration of Political Parties also give a lot of cause for unease and give more ammunition to those are convinced that everything is being tailored to ensure the enthronement of Mr Doe.
The stiff financial requirements appear to have been made to prevent the registration of any parties that might not have official favour.
But what has given cause for the most dismay is the announcement of the uncovering of yet another coup plot and the personalities said to be involved in it. The cynics are bound to say that this has been a case of "if the guidelines don't get you, a coup plot will get you", for these coup plots and the personalities are getting to the point where they are stretching credulity and becoming altogether too conveniently timed and placed each time Mr Doe appears to have a little difficulty in the area of competition.
Then there is the curious matter of image making through the rewriting of recent political history.
Now that socialism has been identified as the great evil from which Liberia must be saved, any action or pronouncement with the vaguest socialist connotations is now being blamed on Bacchus Matthews and his friends who were Mr Doe's first advisers and worked with him in the early days of the 'Liberian revolution'.
But it is not these 'unLiberian policies' which cause disquiet, it is the suggestion that Mr Doe was an innocent, naive and simple soldier who was seduced into the terrible policies of the first year of his rule by hardened socialists and he had no choice but to do as he was told.
Could this possibly be the same Mr Doe who has dealt so decisively, and some might say, ruthlessly with his colleagues once they pose a problem to him? The same person who sent Gen. Wey Syen to the firing squad, the same fire-breathing soldier who supervised the execution of the cream of the Tolbert government and walked away from it without emotions?
Could it be the same Mr Doe who told America that he was ready to return the money that had been donated towards the return to civil rule it the US interfered in Liberia's internal affairs.
It is important to know because it might solve the suspicion that maybe Mr Doe is now under the influence of some ultra right wing people who are also making him say and do only what they want.
The re-establishment of diplomatic relations with Israel and the visit to that country for example, is that the work: of Mr Doe's new advisers or Mr Doe himself. Nobody had suggested back in 1981 that the visit to Ethiopia stemmed from anything but a conviction on the part of Mr Doe that the Mengistu way was something worth emulating.
This same apparently 'pliable' Mr Doe moved on his next deputy Gen. Quiwonkpa without any hesitation and now his until recently current deputy and to some observers, inseparable friend. Maj-Gen. Podier has been placed under arrest, possibly facing the fate of his predecessors.
It is very difficult to reconcile such a track record with the image of a soft Mr Doe who was held captive by ideological pursuits intent on turning Liberia into a socialist state. Mr Doe will have to accept some responsibility for the events of the past four years in Liberia.
Mr Doe stated recently: "But the Head of State is either elected, in which case the electoral process can remove him from office, or he assumed office through his own initiative. In this case he will surrender power on his own free will."
Irrefutable logic that, and even clearer evidence that Mr Doe is his own man.
As he himself has clearly stated, he came to power "through his own initiative" and that means that he owes no apologies to anybody.
If, however, he wants to reap the benefit of the accolade of the patriotic soldier who entered his country's political scene to incorrect injustices, then he should not be seen as interfering in any way with the electoral process that he has promised.
It is expecting too much of the people to accept that every Liberian who has expressed contrary opinions of desire to challenge Mr Doe is either a 'trained socialist' or subvertionist intent on bringing chaos to Liberia.
Mr Doe managed to raise the political consciousness of the majority of the Liberian people as has never been done before. It is quite likely that enough Liberians are grateful enough for that alone to give him their votes without the necessity of all his opponents being traitors.
