As President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf embarks on her second-term, the gods are looking on with anxiety, worried to see if she will end, nonce for all, the curse on the second-terms of her predecessors since 1971, 40 years a go, when no president has survived the second-term for democratic continuity that has plagued the country with devastating consequences, economic and political.
Laden with instability and therefore underdevelopment, a prime factor in the continuing march towards poverty has been the lack of continuity of democratic governance since the death of President William VS Tubman in 1971, the leader who clung to power through brutality and fear for 27 years, a time span that would have produced 3 Presidents, making democratic transition normal and not so violent or contentious as it has been.  
Hence, many of today’s voters, aged 40, cannot understand the positive dimensions of peaceful, democratic transition, in terms of its socio-economic dimensions.  They have come to believe in violent change as an option, since the tenets of democracy are too complicated for them to understand. 
Undoubtedly, though, each of the epochs within 40 years necessitated change, but the change that appeared would represent chaos and the urge for more chance in a vicious cycle of instability resulting in chronic poverty. 
Now, perhaps from hindsight since foresight was absent in the mindless glamour for change, whatever change, and as the facts now present themselves, what was needed to be done with the ancient True Whig Party was continued knocking at its doors for democratic reforms ending with competitive elections as we now see. But the world was at a different stage, in an era of the Cold War, with allies defined not on the basis of their adherence to democratic norms, but how well they embraced and glued themselves to one of the centers of power—East or West. Thus democratic continuity was on the agenda for client states such as Liberia and nearly all African states.
President Tolbert, taking over from a tyrannical and non-reformist Tubman, would have fitted firmly in today’s global political configurations in which competitive elections, not the entrenchment of one-party rule, created firmer foundations for democratic continuity and therefore economic development. 
History, not made in a vacuum, however had its own verdict, ensuring the abortion of democratic political demands and throwing into power an incapable and greedy military junta. The rise of Master Sergeant turned General Samuel K. Doe to power opened avenues for democratic change, in that for the first time in the memory of Liberians, multi-party elections became mandatory and were held. As it turned out, with the Cold War still entrenched and looking on, the elections became a case of fulfilling the gospel—a farce for legitimizing a military dictatorship unprepared for reforms. Outliving its time as the Cold War receded into history, now with every ally good or bad for himself, the Master Sergeant fell, unable to complete his first term in office, just like the man he shot in the head, Tolbert, was unable to complete his term. 
This absence of democratic continuity—peaceful change of the guards in competitive elections gave birth to Mr. Charles Taylor and his allies in the National Patriotic Front of Liberia. It was evident by the manner in which they rose to power that democratic continuity was not on their agenda. They wanted implanted a one-party state in an era that has greeted multi-partiyism as a region, with anyone outside charged with heresy or blasphemy. Taylor and his corps were even more grossly incapable of seeing the political and economic benefits of democratic continuity, with their excessive greed and insane violence to protect the greed as some of the factors. 
We now sit in a different era, with a president that was part of the protest movement in the 1970s, now a Nobel laureate and wildly respected. But based on recent developments, particularly with Mr. George Weah and his allies knocking at the doors of power determined to enter forcibly, there are fears that the curse of the second-term is still hanging around. 
President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf’s critics, (and they are many particularly around a new found savior George Weah) continue to wield a political weapon lacking reason, which is that ‘she brought war.’ Evidence of this bringing war is nothing more than her admission that she financially contributed money for Mr. Taylor’s war effort, but that after she saw its brutalities, she quickly ended her backing. 
Of course, it is almost impossible to find Liberians who did not back the war in one way or the other. The rapidity of rebel blitzkrieg in consuming the country less than 6 months after Mr. Taylor and his allies crossed in from Cote d’Ivoire explains the rebellion’s massive support. But even at that, if one gave money to a cause in ridding a country of a tyrant with such a bloody record, does it mean direct endorsement of rape, murder, and the recruitment of child soldiers? 
The current pontiff, Pope Benedict, was a soldier in the Nazi army, perhaps not by choice. Should he be regarded as a Nazi capable of mass executions and torture? 
In 40 years, for the first time, a democratic space has been created; there is no more what used to be called a bourgeois democratic revolution, the necessary conditions for full political participation, a free press and unfettered freedom of speech, all prerequisites for the rise of communism in the drive towards utopian statelessness. More than 4 decades after, these conditions now exist in Liberia, with opposition parties declaring to seize power without their members being thrown behind bars and their offices raided. Opposition parties run radio and television stations, on which they threatened to ‘drag’ the president as was done to Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi. They even plan to inaugurate their own government, make the country ‘bitter and ungovernable’, all without being touched. 
In a bourgeois democratic revaluation that allows total freedom, political organization for democratic continuity is possible, but anarchy can be the result if lawlessness prevails. Within the framework of the law, as bourgeois democratic revolutions demand, no party can win and lose elections without resorting to violence. The legislature is a conglomeration of parties, since no single party has a monopoly. 
Thus reform-minded Liberians and political actors must insist on democratic continuity so that the foundations of stability can be built. The more elections are held, the more common they become, making the country stable for investment and the fight against poverty. If this opportunity is abused, another cycle of instability with severe consequences in a changing world is the option. No one has all the answers, certainly not the opposition as they stand.