LONDON – Even the worst of African situations can be turned around. In Liberia it has been done in two years. The descent during the 1980s and 90s was precipitous, fast and deadly. A quarter of a million people were killed by rival militias, hundreds of thousands driven across borders into refugee camps, one president tortured to death and the macabre event recorded on video, young adolescent boys dressed up in wigs and terrified the populace with random killings and, not least, the country was systematically looted almost clean by its warlord/president Charles Taylor, who became rich on the export of timber, iron ore and alluvial diamonds from neighbouring Sierra Leone.

Two years ago I was here at the war’s end. Nigerian and Ghanaian peacekeeping troops lined the road from the airport, backs to the road, eyes scanning the jungle for movement. The roads were sandbagged with checkpoints, the telephone polls and electricity pylons were stripped bare.

I arrived with President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria who had engineered the removal of Taylor to exile in Nigeria and the introduction of West African peacekeepers, together with a contingent of U.S. soldiers. He came to the presidential palace, making his way through tumultuous crowds who shouted “bring us peace” and surprised the leaders of the interim government, made up in large part by leaders of rival militias, by admonishing them “to love one another and to forgive”.

Two years later on Friday I returned with Obasanjo. The peacekeepers were gone from the airport road, the sandbags were removed, the streets had been cleaned, the tradesmen lined the road, selling everything from eggs to wash pots to cell phone cards. I could see people sitting at leisure in open-air cafés. There were signs advertising Internet service.

Obasanjo came to meet the interim government and also the contestants for the elections on Tuesday – “the freest elections Liberia will ever have had”, in the words of Alan Doss, the UN’s Special Representative in Monrovia. This time Obasanjo thanked the interim government for midwifing a peaceful transition and bluntly told the over twenty presidential candidates who had assembled before him that “Liberia can’t have 20 presidents. It is no good telling your supporters you are ‘sure’ to win. That just creates problems afterwards”.

The election appears to be down to two candidates who appear to be running neck to neck. One is the 66 years old, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, an experienced former senior Citicorp banker and one time finance minister who, if she wins, will be the first woman head of state in Africa. Her rival is the 39 year old, former African and World Footballer of the Year, George Weah.

Weah appeals to the youth of the country and Johnson-Sirleaf to those who know the country needs practical experience. Whoever wins, Obasanjo told me, “will have heavy demands put on them by the donor nations. And so it should be. Money can’t be poured into resuscitating the country unless there are very tight controls”.

The country is still being looted by corrupt government officials and I was told how the last year the railway lines have been ripped up and also the sleepers and the ballast beneath, and everything sold to Chinese scrap merchants. There is still no water and electricity in the capital – even in the presidential washroom that I used the water was a brown trickle in the tap. There are few medical supplies to speak of.

How a football star could sort this out is a good question. Obasanjo says if Leah wins he will have to be “packaged”. When I asked what this meant, he said, it meant “carefully surrounding him with people who know how to run things”. Does he at least have integrity, I asked the president, “Yes he does, most definitely”, he replied, “and compassion too.”

In the capital the blue berries on Nigerian, Pakistani and Ukranian heads are ubiquitous. Their commander, the Nigerian lieutenant general, Joseph Owonubi, presiding over a smart parade and the slickest presentation of arms I have ever seen, told me that “violence is sharply down and I don’t anticipate any election day violence.” The UN’s Alan Doss told me that they had registered 75-80% of the putative electorate, and had even got ballot boxes to some of the remotest villages where ballots could only be delivered after a four-day walk.

The peacekeepers will stay another year. The Liberian police and army are being trained. The donors are trying to get schools and hospitals up and moving. Money is not the problem – even the Bush administration has been generous. But avoiding both corruption and sabotage (the EU’s chief here was attacked by an axe when he tried to restore the main electricity transformer) is a Herculean task. But progress is visibly underway. Liberia is being given a second chance at life.