George Weah Returns: The Homecoming That Reopens Liberia’s Unfinished Political Question – A Commentary

By Julius T. Jaesen II
Managing Editor & Publisher
Democracy Watch
[email protected]

George Weah has returned to Liberia, but his return is not merely a homecoming; it is the reopening of a political question that the 2023 election answered electorally, but did not resolve politically: what kind of Liberia is being constructed after the Weah presidency, and who ultimately possesses the political legitimacy to define its next chapter?

There is something profoundly consequential about a former president returning to the country he once governed while the political architecture of his former administration remains under scrutiny, the opposition he continues to lead is repositioning itself for another contest, and the government that succeeded him is itself approaching the point at which inherited explanations must increasingly give way to its own record of performance. George Weah therefore returns to a Liberia that is neither politically frozen in 2023 nor institutionally detached from the six years of his own presidency. He returns to a country in which his political legacy remains contested, his movement remains electorally relevant, the Boakai administration is accumulating its own record, and a narcotics investigation involving figures from the former political establishment has introduced an entirely new dimension into the national discourse. His arrival is consequently not the end of a political absence. It may be the beginning of a new phase in Liberia’s struggle over power, accountability, political memory and the meaning of national leadership.

The first significance of Weah’s return, therefore, is the reclamation of political space. Political power is not exercised only through constitutional office; it is also exercised through presence, organisation, narrative and the capacity to mobilise. For more than two years, Weah could influence Liberian politics from outside the country, but physical absence inevitably created political distance. His return closes that distance. He is now back in the political environment in which the CDC must rebuild its organisational strength, reconnect with its grassroots constituency and begin the much harder task of transforming the former president’s personal popularity into a viable national coalition. Reports indicate that Weah has already declared his intention to contest the 2029 presidential election and has returned with an explicitly political agenda. Today’s reception is therefore important, but its real significance should not be exaggerated. A crowd can demonstrate enthusiasm; it cannot by itself demonstrate an electoral majority. The airport can measure mobilisation. Only the ballot box can measure political power.

And this is precisely where the political sophistication of Weah’s comeback will be tested. In 2017, Weah was the outsider asking Liberia to allow him to govern. In 2029, if he contests, he will be a former president asking Liberians to return him to an office he has already occupied. That is a fundamentally different political proposition. He can no longer campaign on the simple promise of what he might do with executive power. He must explain what he learned from having possessed it. He must answer the difficult questions surrounding his first administration and demonstrate why a second presidency would not merely reproduce the first. This is the burden of restoration politics: the former ruler must persuade the electorate that experience has produced political maturity, institutional learning and a better governing proposition. Weah’s challenge is consequently not merely to remind Liberians of what they liked about him. It is to convince them that there is a sufficiently compelling version of his future to justify returning him to the presidency.

That burden becomes even more complicated because Weah is returning under the political shadow of Jewel Howard-Taylor. The former Vice President, who served alongside him from 2018 to 2024, is facing charges including drug trafficking, money laundering and related offences in connection with an ongoing investigation into an alleged transnational narcotics network. The allegations remain allegations and must be tested through the legal process. But politics does not wait for the conclusion of a trial before drawing its own questions. Taylor’s position in the former administration means that the case inevitably intersects with the political legacy of the government in which she served.

Weah therefore faces a delicate political dilemma. He cannot responsibly allow partisan loyalty to substitute for evidence, but neither can he remain indifferent to the possibility of political persecution if he believes the investigation is being abused. His strongest position is consequently neither unconditional political defence nor premature condemnation. It is the defence of due process. Liberia should investigate serious allegations wherever they lead, including into the political establishment, but the state must also demonstrate that its investigation is evidence-driven, impartial and consistent with the rule of law. The principle should be simple: no sacred cows, but neither should there be political sacrificial lambs. That distinction may become one of the defining tests of Weah’s political leadership in the period ahead.

For President Boakai, the same narcotics investigation presents an extraordinary political opportunity, but also an extraordinary political risk. The government can legitimately argue that the fight against organised crime cannot exclude politically connected individuals. Indeed, the administration has publicly maintained that the law should apply regardless of political affiliation, office, status or influence. If that principle is genuinely applied, the investigation could become one of the strongest demonstrations of state authority in contemporary Liberia. It would show that political proximity to power no longer guarantees immunity from investigation.

But the government must understand the other side of this equation. The moment an investigation touches prominent opposition figures, it becomes vulnerable to political interpretation. The government cannot defeat allegations of selective justice merely by denouncing its critics. It must defeat them through evidence, transparency and procedural consistency. If the investigation produces credible evidence and survives judicial scrutiny, the government’s position becomes considerably stronger. If the process appears selective, improvised or politically choreographed, the same investigation could become the opposition’s most powerful instrument of mobilisation.

This is why Liberia’s drug crisis could eventually become one of the defining political battlegrounds of 2029. The issue is no longer simply whether drugs are entering Liberia or whether criminal networks are exploiting the country’s institutions. The larger question has become whether the Liberian state possesses the institutional capacity and political independence to confront organised crime without turning criminal justice into partisan warfare. Two competing narratives are already possible. The government can say: we are dismantling networks that have penetrated the state, and nobody is above the law. The opposition can respond: the government is using the language of law enforcement to settle political scores. Which narrative prevails will depend less upon propaganda than upon evidence.

That distinction is crucial because the narcotics question has already moved beyond the narrow boundaries of law enforcement. Liberia has experienced multiple major cocaine seizures, including the nearly four-tonne seizure authorities described as the country’s largest, while security and government personnel have also faced scrutiny in connection with the broader investigations. This means the country is confronting something larger than an isolated criminal episode. It is confronting questions about institutional vulnerability, international criminal networks, border and port security, corruption within enforcement structures and the capacity of the state to protect a particularly vulnerable youthful population from the social consequences of narcotics.

Consequently, whoever controls the political narrative surrounding the drug crisis may possess a significant advantage heading into 2029. But Liberia should resist the temptation to turn the courts into political campaign platforms. Criminal guilt must be established by evidence and judicial process, not by political affiliation. If Liberians allow partisan identity to determine who they believe is guilty or innocent, the country will have transformed a national security crisis into a partisan contest and weakened precisely those institutions needed to defeat organised crime.

Yet Weah’s greatest political vulnerability may eventually have little to do with Jewel Howard-Taylor or even the narcotics investigation. It may be the record of his own administration. The former president cannot indefinitely campaign against Boakai without inviting Liberians to revisit the years in which he himself occupied the Executive Mansion. That is the unavoidable contradiction of political restoration. The former leader’s greatest asset is experience, but his greatest liability is also experience. He knows how to govern because he has governed. But because he has governed, Liberians know what that government looked like.

This is where the political debate should become intellectually serious. Weah should not be asked merely whether he wants to return. He should be asked why he should return. What did his first administration get right? What did it get wrong? Which institutional weaknesses did it fail to address? What would a second administration do differently? What lessons have been learned? How would another Weah government address the economic and social grievances that remain? What would be the governing philosophy of a second presidency?
Those questions cannot be answered by nostalgia.

Weah undoubtedly possesses substantial emotional capital. His personal journey from humble beginnings to international football greatness and eventually to the presidency remains one of the most powerful political narratives in Liberia. His story speaks to social mobility, possibility and the aspiration of ordinary people to occupy the highest institutions of the republic. That emotional connection is a genuine political asset. But political emotion has to be converted into political substance. A 2029 campaign built entirely upon memories of the past will eventually collide with voters who want to know what happens tomorrow.

This is where the phrase “a second chance” becomes inadequate. Liberia does not merely need another chance for George Weah; George Weah would need to demonstrate that he has learned enough from his first chance to deserve another one. That is a much more demanding proposition.

But neither should Boakai mistake Weah’s vulnerabilities for an automatic political advantage. Incumbency carries its own burden. Boakai entered the presidency promising a different trajectory for Liberia. By 2029, the electorate will have had years to measure that promise against reality. The argument that his administration inherited problems from Weah may explain the starting point, but it cannot indefinitely substitute for results. At some point, every administration becomes responsible for the conditions under which it governs.

That means the 2029 contest could ultimately become a referendum on two records rather than merely a contest between two personalities. Weah will ask Liberians to judge what Boakai did with power. Boakai will ask Liberians to remember what Weah did with power. Each will attempt to turn the other’s record into the principal argument for his own return or retention. The electorate, however, will eventually ask the same question of both: what did your leadership actually change in the lives of ordinary Liberians?

This is why the size of today’s welcome should be interpreted cautiously. Political crowds matter. They demonstrate organisational capacity and emotional connection. But they are not electoral mathematics. Weah can receive an enormous welcome and still lose in 2029. He can receive a modest welcome and still construct a winning coalition. The same principle applies to Boakai. The political theatre of a rally is temporary; the electoral arithmetic of Liberia is national.

Weah’s real challenge, therefore, is coalition construction. Can he expand beyond the CDC’s traditional constituency? Can he attract voters who did not support him in 2023? Can he reconcile competing opposition interests? Can he present himself as something larger than the leader of a partisan movement? Can he transform his personal popularity into a national governing proposition? These questions are far more consequential than the number of supporters assembled along the airport road.

And here lies the deepest political significance of Weah’s return. Liberia is not merely witnessing the return of a former president. It is witnessing the reopening of a political argument that the 2023 election temporarily settled but did not permanently resolve: what kind of state should Liberia become, and which political force is capable of building it?

Boakai’s answer will have to come through governance. Weah’s answer will have to come through opposition. One possesses the institutional machinery of the state; the other possesses the political machinery of opposition. One must defend a record being created; the other must rehabilitate a record already created. One has the advantage of incumbency; the other has the advantage of political nostalgia and the freedom to criticise. Neither advantage is permanent.

The decisive factor will ultimately be credibility.
If Boakai can demonstrate that his government can fight organised crime without political discrimination, improve institutions without partisan manipulation and deliver measurable improvements in the material conditions of Liberians, then Weah’s return will become a difficult restoration project. If, however, the government allows institutional failures, economic frustrations, political confrontation and allegations of selective justice to accumulate, then Weah’s return could become considerably more consequential than his opponents anticipate.

Likewise, if Weah returns merely to relive the political emotions of 2017, he will discover that Liberia has moved on. But if he returns with the humility to acknowledge shortcomings, the intellectual seriousness to articulate a new governing programme, the discipline to build coalitions beyond his traditional base and the political maturity to distinguish legitimate opposition from destructive confrontation, then his comeback could become one of the most consequential political projects in Liberia’s modern history. That is why the real story of George Weah’s return cannot be found exclusively at Roberts International Airport.

The airport is only the opening scene. The deeper story will unfold in the months and years that follow. For Weah, the question is whether a homecoming can become a political restoration. For Boakai, the question is whether incumbency can become a demonstrable record of national transformation. For the opposition, the question is whether enthusiasm can become a coherent national coalition. For the government, the question is whether law enforcement can remain justice rather than politics by other means. And for Liberia, the ultimate question is larger than either George Weah or Joseph Boakai: Can the republic finally conduct a political contest in which records are examined, evidence is respected, institutions are protected, and the future is debated without the state itself becoming the prize of partisan warfare?

That is the real significance of George Weah’s return. He has come home. But politically, Liberia has only just begun to discover what his homecoming means.