In the summer of 2003, I was upbraided by then long-shot presidential candidate of Liberia, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. She said, "Riva, do not ever tell me how to manage Liberian politics!"  I learned a valuable lesson that day—an outsider could not judge cause-and-effect in a complex foreign political context.  Two years later, Sirleaf went on to win the presidency and become the first woman democratically elected to lead an African nation. On May 29, 2024, at polling station in Pretoria, South