The Only Woman Running for President in Her Country
The West African nation of Liberia will hold its general election on October 10th. It’s a significant moment for the country, which has suffered through not only 14 years of a bloody civil war that ended in 2003, but also an Ebola outbreak beginning in 2014 and falling commodity prices that have impeded its fragile recovery.
On the day of the vote, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf will step down after 12 years in power. As the country’s first female president and Africa’s first elected female head of state, she’s enjoyed popularity abroad, but at home her administration has been dogged by accusations of corruption. Twenty candidates are running to replace her. Only one is a woman.
MacDella Cooper is that woman. Born in the 1970s in Monrovia, she spent her childhood between the Liberian capital and her family’s home in the countryside—until the violence of the civil war upended her life. Her stepfather was killed and her mother fled to the
