The 1980 coup signalled the demise of the minority settler government that had ruled the country since its independence. It also heralded a period of instability that rocked the country for the better part of 14 years. Leaving an estimated 250,000 people killed and many thousands more displaced and made refugees. The conflict left the country in economic ruin and infrastructure destroyed. The capital, Monrovia, remains without mains electricity and running water. Unemployment and illiteracy are endemic.

By the late 1989, arbitrary rule and economic collapse had resulted in civil war. The National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL) militia, led by Charles Taylor, quickly overran much of the countryside and entered the capital in mid 1990. President Doe was captured and executed a breakaway faction of Taylor’s NPFL led by Gen. Prince Johnson in September of 1990.The first part of the Liberian civil war was ended in 1997 by a peace agreement and the election of the former NPFL leader Charles Taylor as president. The reprieve was short lived, with fighting breaking out in the northwest of the country in 1999. Mr Taylor accused Guinea of supporting the rebellion.The second phase of the war came to an end in 2003 when Mr Taylor, under international pressure to quit and boxed in Monrovia by rebels who had seized half of the city, stepped down and went into exile in Nigeria.Two rounds of elections were held in October and November 2005 to elect a president, vice president and members of the country’s two chamber legislature.The UN maintains some 15,000 soldiers in Liberia. It is one of the organisation's most expensive peacekeeping operations. Thirty political parties currently exist in Liberia.
They are the United People’s Party (UPP),
Liberian People’s Party (LPP),
National Patriotic Party (NPP),
True Whig Party (TWP),
Reformation Alliance Party (RAP),
People Democratic Party of Liberia (PDPL),
Liberia Action Party (LAP),
National Democratic Party of Liberia (NDPL),
Unity Party (UP),
Liberia National Union (LINU),
Liberia Unification Party (LUP),
Free Democratic Party (FDP),
All Liberian Coalition Party (ALCOP),
Progressive People’s Party (PPP),
Labor Party of Liberia (LPL),
Liberia Equal Rights Party (LERP),
National Reformation Party (NRP),
New Deal Movement (NDM)
Liberty Party (LP),
United Democratic Party (UDP),
Congress for Democratic Change (CDC),
Liberia Destiny Party (LDP),
Freedom Alliance Party (FAPL),
the Independent Democratic Party (IDP),
Reformed United Liberian Party (RULP),
National Vision Party of Liberia (NAVIPOL),
National Party of Liberia (NPL),
Union of Liberian Democrats (ULD),
and the Victory for Change, Progressive Democratic Party (PRODEMP).

Twenty-two of these political parties, either in collaboration/coalitions with others or independently contested in the elections on October 11, 2005. According to Liberian electoral laws, a run-off poll was held on November 8, 2005 between Mr. George M. Weah of the Congress for Democratic Change (CDC) who gathered 28% of the votes cast and Mrs. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of the Unity Party (UP) who came second with 19% of the votes, since none of the candidates in the elections got number of votes required to win on the first round.