Ruth Perry (politician)

Ruth Sando Fahnbulleh Perry (born July 16, 1939 in Dia Town , Liberia; † January 8, 2017 in Columbus , Ohio , United States ) was President of Liberia from 1996 to 1997 .

Life

Ruth Sando Fahnbulleh Perry was born to a Muslim family in the village of Dia Town , in Grand Cape Mount County , western Liberia . She belongs to the Vai people. First she attended the local Koran school and also completed the traditional training of a Sande school.

In the 1950s she attended the Catholic boarding school Saint Theresa Convent High School of Liberia in Monrovia , where she acquired the university entrance qualification. This was followed by a teaching degree at the University of Liberia in Monrovia and a job as a primary school teacher. She married the Grand Cape Mount County Court Judge, McDonald Perry , had seven children, and retired into private life. In 1971 she got a job at the Liberian branch of Chase Manhattan Bank in Monrovia, where she worked until the branch was closed in 1985.

Senator

As early as the 1970s, Ruth SF Perry became interested in politics and joined the Unity Party. After the coup of Samuel K. Doe , the latter began to break the existing supremacy of the Ameriko-Liberians, many administrative and state officials of the Tolbert government fled abroad or were imprisoned. Doe responded to international pressure in 1985 with a series of local and presidential elections, in which he won. Ruth Perry also participated in the election and was elected Senator of Grand Cape Mount County . The unsuccessful parties and foreign election observers doubted Does election victory, there were demonstrations and political protests. Part of the opposition parties, including Perry's Unity Party, boycotted parliamentary activities from then on. Ruth Perry decided to resign from the Unity Party and so kept her senatorial seat as an independent elector. She emphasized her political neutrality and was therefore able to defend her place in the Senate election in 1989.

Another coup in December 1989 shook Liberia and ended the rule of the Doe government. After months of civil war , Amos Sawyer took over the presidency of the interim government (Government of National Unity) on November 22, 1990, he had to carry out his government activities from exile in Ghana . Once again bloody fighting broke out between the civil war parties and it was agreed in the peace negotiations that Ruth Perry could take on the role of interim president to prepare for democratic elections in Liberia.

Presidency

On September 3, 1996, Perry was sworn in as President of the State Council and took on the task of preparing for the May 30, 1997 presidential election, preventing a power vacuum and leading ongoing efforts to continue the peace process. Perry was replaced by the election winner Charles Taylor on July 19, 1997, according to the regulations . She herself had used the presidency to expand her international contacts and went abroad after the handover.

From 2004 she was employed at a research institute at Boston University - the "African Presidential Archives and Research Center".

Initiatives

Ruth Perry worked as senator and later president to improve the living conditions and rights of women in Liberia. She founded the Peace Now organization and is a founding member of the Women's Development Association of Liberia.

See also : List of female heads of state and government

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Death of a Matriach: Ruth Perry, former Liberian leader this at 77 . ( Memento of the original from January 8, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. FrontPageAfrica Newspaper, January 8, 2017, accessed January 9, 2017. 
2. ↑ ^{a b c} Carol Brennan: Ruth Perry. Answers.com, archived from the original on June 9, 2009 ; accessed on January 9, 2017 (English). 
3. ↑ Annette Madden: In her footsteps: 101 remarkable Black women ... Conari Press, Berkeley (CA) 2000, ISBN 1-57324-553-4 , Ruth Perry, p. 85-87 .
4. ↑ Andrea Fleschenberg, Claudia Derichs: Handbook of top politicians . VS Verlag, Wiesbaden 2008, ISBN 978-3-531-16147-1 , interim scholars from state and government, p. 245 .
5. ^ David J. Craig: Liberia's Ruth Sando Perry named new Balfour African President-in-Residence. BU Bridge , January 30, 2004, accessed January 9, 2017 . 
6. ^ From Liberia to the African stage. In: Africa Recovery Online - Africa Recovery / UN / 12 # 1. United Nations Economic and Social Council , archived from the original on October 7, 1999 ; accessed on January 9, 2017 (English).