Liberia, Sept. 14 -- Long before the first ballot was cast last week, the Unity Party's county convention in Lofa had already become a political test. The question was not simply who would emerge as chairman. The bigger question was whether the party, after years of internal disagreements, competing claims to leadership and politically charged confrontations, could finally conduct an election without tearing itself apart.

By Selma Lomax, selma.lomax@frontpageafricaonline.com

For weeks, political tensions had been building among rival camps. Names, loyalties and competing interpretations of the party's internal rules had created an atmosphere in which even an ordinary county convention carried the possibility of becoming another divisive...