How Did West-African Countries Handle the Ebola Virus?

Part II

How did West-African countries handle the Ebola virus?

“The Ebola crisis is not a political crisis; it's a public health crisis, but the problem dealing with Ebola can't be divorced from politics.”^[1] The killer virus raised several dilemmas regarding the internal politics in the affected countries. First, the fragile economy of the West-African countries didn’t permit a vast range of immediate actions and external implication was clearly needed. Moreover, the crisis situation revealed the individualistic human nature and corruption influenced the internal implementation of the necessary actions. The international help was not focused only the monetary issues, but also on monitoring the actions of the governmental assemblies. Second, the civic engagement supported several shifts; initially the mistrust in the national government and the misuse of the communication between the governing power and the society facilitated a disengagement, then the international implications encouraged the society to take action, but these movements escalated to violence for some areas.

Economy shapes political legitimacy

The modern political leaders face challenges in gaining the peoples’ trust, because of the shift towards a faster and more complex society. Globalization influences dramatically politics, and the leaders cannot succeed to fulfill the population’s expectations. Economy plays an important role in the fulfillment of the political tasks; also the ‘economical growth’ of the country represents the unit of measurement for the elected power’s support.^[2] Developing countries face serious financial problems that lead to the failure of an effective government and provoke a malfunction of the society. In crisis situations- like Ebola virus spread- states that suffer of poverty reveal the malfunctions of the governance immediately. The leaders and government officials of the three most affected countries executed abuse of power through corruption. The citizens were ought to bribe the officials in order to get help or access to the needed supplies. Moreover, the aid founds were poorly disseminated which also lead to claims of corruption and mismanagement. Transparency International intervened and assigned “UN to conduct and publish a comprehensive audit of all Ebola emergency founds.” Also, the governments and aid providers must ensure corruption risk assessments and monitoring.^[3] 

The head of the state in Liberia adopted a positive role- when the disease first spread- but motivated by essentially pragmatic goal, hence the leadership can be identified as transactional. ‘President Madam Ellen Johnson Sirleaf announced the formation of a national Task Force on Ebola, to be headed personally by her. But the Task Force idea appeared like another political decoration: it had no clear mandate, a very weak coordination structure. The declaration was considered a purely political move and it didn’t trigger any involvement of the local people.^[4] Additionally, the government’s response to Ebola was slow until the external forces occurred and even then the government was not able to support the testing costs. Regarding Guinea, the government acted in denial- another malefactor encouraging the virus spread- refusing to admit the scale of the problem until the external help occurred.^[5] This political move hints ‘fear of image damage’ considering that the disease first occurred in Guinea. The state of ‘denial’ was also popular among Liberian population; “a mob attacked an Ebola isolation center, stealing equipment and "freeing" patients while shouting "There's no Ebola”^[6] In Sierra Leone several believes circulated referring to conspiracies against culture, witch crafting or monetary interests. These believes were encouraged by the lack of trust in the government in power and the misuse of the communication organs between the government and the society.