Former President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is linking up with her Unity Party after nearly six years of a brutal separation.
The veteran politician has been holding talks with her deputy Joseph Boakai who now heads the former ruling party as they bid to retake state power, people with knowledge of the interaction have told the Oracle News Daily.
Johnson Sirleaf regrets not backing the Unity Party 2017 campaign, which saw it crashing out of office but maintains she did not support the Coalition For Democratic Change and President George Weah. It was just a neutralist role played to facilitate a smooth democratic transition in a county emerging from armed conflict, one source said.
“It is God that has kept us alive to see what is going on in our country,” the former President 84, is said to have told her septuagenarian vice president who will be challenging Weah for the presidency this October. 
When Boakai asked: so, how do you see the country? The aging leader said she was displeased. The pair blamed the breakdown in relationship to competing interests of rival supporters within the party.
Perhaps the greatest Liberian politician ever based on her genius, Johnson Sirleaf is back on base providing strategies and direction for the former ruling party return to power.
Amos Tweh, Unity Party’s National Secretary General confirmed the pair have been meeting and recently met.
“Yes, Mrs. Sirleaf and our standard bearer have been meeting. They are not enemies. They met recently,” he told Oracle News Daily.
Unity Party expelled Johnson Sirleaf in January 2018 with party leaders accusing of meddling in last year’s presidential elections in which Boakai suffered a bruising defeat.
“The behaviour of the expelled persons constitutes sabotage and undermined the existence of the party,” said the statement announcing the decision, which was taken by the party’s executive committee.
Sirleaf denied the party’s allegations that she held inappropriate private meetings with election magistrates before the 10 October vote.
– Festus Poquie
