A champion of democracy
The administration of Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is part of a new wave of democratic governance washing through African nations, bringing an emphasis on economic reforms to get the nation back on track, faculty members said after Sirleaf was selected as this year’s principal speaker at Harvard’s 360th Commencement. Nicholas Burns, the Sultan of Oman Professor of the Practice of International Relations at the Harvard Kennedy School and former U.S. undersecretary of state for political affairs, said that Liberia, South Africa, Botswana, and Mali have all embraced democracy in recent years. Sirleaf’s six-year term as president has been remarkable, he said, not only because of its break with the past dictatorships that ruled previously, but also because of the stability and hope it brought to the war-torn nation. “She’s one of the modern generation of African leaders. She has rebuilt her country and given it new hope. Liberia was a...