Liberia's top two face off

"You know how many presidents I've sat with in the world?" he says, irritated. "An educated man is one that is willing to develop people. Ask the PhDs (in the race) ... how many schools have they built?" He claimed that those with advanced degrees have done little to help the country, and sat in America as the country was destroyed.

Weah's "grassrooters" (as his supporters are called here) say they are fed up with the domination of Liberian politics by the small minority of "Congos" or Americo-Liberians, those whose ancestors were freed US slaves and have largely dominated politics since the country was founded in 1847.

In fact, his supporters have turned his lack of education into a rally cry: "You know book, you don't know book. We will vote for you."

At Weah's party headquarters, young men hold informal political debates. "We've seen no development from [educated Congos]," shouts Sylvester Panten, a 27-year-old man with a pair of glossy sunglasses on his shaved head and a crisp shirt with Weah's face on it. Mr. Panten says Weah always stood up for the common people. "[During the war] when we were sucking Kiss Me and eating leaves, George Weah went to the UN and told them our people are dying," he says, referring to the snail-like animal that many Liberians were forced to eat during the war.

Weah is proposing a National Reconciliation and Healing Program, which will provide academic, vocational, and career development opportunities for former combatants and other war-affected youth. His platform also calls for free primary education. Secondary and undergraduate education will be subsidized by the government.

Gibson Jerue, news editor at the Analyst newspaper in Monrovia, says Weah's popular appeal is widespread, but adds that people are worried that he could be "manipulated by the educated ones behind him."

Manipulation isn't what concerns voters about Johnson-Sirleaf; it's her former ties with exiled president Charles Taylor, who has been indicted for crimes against humanity by neighboring Sierra Leone's UN-backed war crimes court.

Johnson-Sirleaf has repeatedly said that she only supported Mr. Taylor early on in his bid to pressure former president Samuel Doe - who overthrew President William Tolbert in a 1980 coup - out of the government. When she realized he was after power himself, she says, she spent the next several years working to remove him.

Johnson-Sirleaf admits making a mistake by trusting Taylor, but calls him "a diminishing threat to the country." She says she is focusing on a platform to rebuild the shattered infrastructure, jump-start education, and provide opportunities for 15,000 war-affected children.

She says her platform sets her apart, because she places more emphasis on anticorruption efforts and engaging war-affected youth.

Her plan includes a sweeping revitalization of the education system, with the refurbishing of academic and vocational institutions, the introduction of farming practices to students, and after-school sports programs.

"That's where Mr. Weah comes in," she quips.

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