Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, Liberia's new President and Africa's first elected woman head of state, enters the annals of history with an enormous task ahead of her. The peace-building challenges that confront her are colossal in a country with poor infrastructure and lacking running water or electricity, few telephone lines or usable roads and the barest of health and educational systems. And if that's not bad enough, she also must reconcile the deep divisions that have sent Liberia tumbling into war year after year. Undaunted, however, the 67-year-old grandmother says she is ready to start work.

"I have always tried to be me, to live a life filled with activism and fighting for what I believe is right," she told an interviewer last year. "I have the breadth and depth of experience in politics and a solid record outside of Liberia. I know that I can be a force for good in this country and am counting on having the chance to try."

Throughout her campaign, she has said that if she won, it would encourage women across Africa to seek high political office. But in rural areas, where male-dominated traditions remain strong, there may be some resistance to the idea of a female leader. Even one well-educated man said: "Only a man can be strong enough to deal with all the ex-combatants. Liberia just isn't ready to have a woman leader yet."

The country's biggest challenges, said Johnson-Sirleaf, “are peace and stability and in that we must respect the needs of the thousands and thousands of youths.” An estimated 100,000 former fighters have to be integrated into the system. Many of the former combatants are young and consider her too old to understand their needs. Illiteracy rates are high and 80 per cent of the work force is jobless.

Another challenge is how to change Liberia's image. Johnson-Sirleaf said Liberia must “reverse its perception as a problematic, failed state through our own performance, to regain our place as a leader on the continent.

"We know expectations are going to be high. The Liberian people have voted for their confidence in my ability to deliver... very quickly."

Many educated Liberians — and members of the old elite descended from freed American slaves — gave Johnson-Sirleaf their backing. Women and some gender-sensitive men in the city are also quick to blame men for wrecking the country.

"We need a woman to put things right," said one waitress.

One of her first pledges was to do something about the scourge of rape, using new legislation that came into force the day after her inauguration. Rape is not a word you often hear in polite society. It is certainly not something that presidents talk about in their inaugural address. But after being sworn in, Johnson-Sirleaf stood up and said something that galvanized her audience. "I know of the struggle because I have been a part of it," she said. "I recall the inhumanity of confinement, the terror of attempted rape."

Sister Barbara Brilliant, a nun and midwife who has lived in Liberia for nearly 30 years — including right through the war — was in the audience and heard the taboo being broken. "I felt, thank God. It's about time. Even here, we had a situation. We had soldiers who got over the fence," she said. "The first thing we did was shut off the light, we lay on the floor and we did not dare to breathe. And all we were thinking of was, 'We don't want to be raped.' This is us, at our age!"

What has finally made this a public issue is the fact that the fighting is over, but the rape has not stopped.

"My administration shall endeavor to give Liberian women prominence," Johnson-Sirleaf said. "We will enforce without fear of favor the laws against rape recently passed by the national transitional legislation."

Johnson-Sirleaf won the internationally endorsed presidential elections last November against her rival and world football star George Weah, who initially alleged fraud but later dropped the charges. During the election campaign, the diminutive grandmother figure was often dwarfed by her party officials and bodyguards but over a political career spanning almost 30 years she has earned her steely nickname, “Iron Lady.” One veteran of Liberia's political scene said Johnson-Sirleaf's nickname comes from her iron will and determination. "It would have been much easier for her to quit politics and sit at home like others have done but she has never given up," he said.

Johnson-Sirleaf was imprisoned in the 1980s for criticizing the military regime of Samuel Doe and then backed Charles Taylor's rebellion before falling out with him and being charged with treason after he became president. She twice went into exile to escape her legal problems with the governments of the day. In 1997, she came a distant second to Taylor in elections following a short-lived peace deal.

Johnson-Sirleaf has held a string of international financial positions, from minister of finance in the late 1970s to Africa director at the United Nations Development Program. With a degree from Harvard University, the divorced mother of four has worked at Citibank, the UN Nations Development Program, the World Bank, the Soros Foundation and the influential International Crisis Group think-tank.

Johnson-Sirleaf said she wants to become president in order "to bring motherly sensitivity and emotion to the presidency" as a way of healing the wounds of war.

Johnson-Sirleaf, a divorcee whose ex-husband died a few years ago, is the mother of four sons and has six grandchildren.

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