THROWBACKTHISDAY, JAN 16; Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is sworn in as Liberia's new and first female president.

                       

On Thisday January 16 in 2006 Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is sworn in as Liberia's new and first female president. She becomes Africa's first female elected head of state.

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is the 24th and current President of Liberia, in office since 2006. She served as Minister of Finance under President William Tolbert from 1979 until the 1980 coup d'état, after which she left Liberia and held senior positions at various financial institutions. She placed second in the 1997 presidential election won by Charles Taylor. She won the 2005 presidential election and took office on 16 January 2006, and she was a successful candidate for re-election in 2011. Sirleaf is the first elected female head of state in Africa.

Sirleaf was jointly awarded the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize with Leymah Gbowee of Liberia and Tawakkol Karman of Yemen. The women were recognized "for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for women's rights to full participation in peace-building work.

Sirleaf was conferred the Indira Gandhi Prize by President of India Pranab Mukherjee on 12 September 2013. As of 2014, she is listed as the 70th most powerful woman in the world by Forbes.

 

 THROWBACKTHISDAY; makes it 10 years and TBT Blog remembers.