Liberia, Sept. 8 -- Two opposition alliances in a decade have collapsed for the same reason: leaders who agreed on what they were against, but not on who among them mattered less. A third attempt is now underway. Liberia cannot afford a third failure.

WE WANT TO BELIEVE IN SUNDAY'S ROUNDTABLE. Liberia's opposition parties, gathered under George Weah's roof at the Jamaica Resort, agreed to build a steering committee and, eventually, a framework for working together ahead of 2029. On paper, it is a modest, careful step. It should be judged as one. But this newspaper has watched this movie before and so has every Liberian old enough to remember 2016 and 2019, so we are going to say plainly what optimism alone will not fix: this effort will ...