MONROVIA, Liberia ? The bullet holes are disappearing from Monrovia’s walls, and U.N. peacekeepers have replaced the crack-addled teenage gunmen who put Liberia through nearly a decade and a half of hell. Now the nation is electing a president to seal the long-elusive peace.

An international soccer star, two former warlords and a Harvard-educated woman are among 22 candidates in Tuesday’s election, vying to head a country founded by freed American slaves that was once counted among West Africa’s most prosperous countries and now has 80 percent unemployment.

This first presidential election since fighting ended two years ago comes at a time when more and more African countries are shaking off the coups, dictatorships and misrule of the past and building democracies.

Some 1.3 million of Liberia’s 3 million people have registered to vote in the elections for president and the U.S.-modeled Senate and House of Representatives.