After so many years of authoritarian rule and war, how does Liberia go about creating democratic institutions?
When I was leader of the Liberian Senate, I invited the National Democratic Institute of the United States to come to talk about the parliamentary process. How the budgetary process works, for example. We need experts from the NDI, the International Republican Institute, the Carter Center, and from similar institutions in Europe and Africa coming to provide training. We must start now with Chairman Bryant realizing that he cannot spend money unless it is appropriated by the legislature. And of course the legislature must be trained to know this process. And we must learn that if the legislature objects to the executive, it doesn’t mean that they are at war with each other. We borrowed from the great constitution of the United States of America and the framers of your constitution. When you read the federalist papers you understand that it was designed to insure that the friction among the various branches of government created the necessary checks and balances to make democracy work. T
