'Old-style Strongmen Are on The Way Out'
Gordon Institute of Business Science
Hot stuff or hot air? Is Liberia's Iron Lady, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, great because she is the first and only woman president on the continent, or is her unique position in fact beguiling?
She swept South Africa's most powerful women off their feet this week. She was here to deliver the sixth annual Nelson Mandela lecture and to encourage bilateral trade ahead of the establishment of South Africa's diplomatic mission in Liberia in the 2008-2009 financial years.
On Friday, at the Dialogue for Justice, at the Gordon Institute of Business Science (Gibs) in Johannesburg, she was hailed as a trailblazer and a bullet dodger; the one African woman who had the strength in a time of war, and amid incredible hostility, to campaign for the presidency of Liberia - in a man's world.
