MONROVIA, Liberia — She has swept floors and waited tables and earned a degree from Harvard. She has been jailed at home and exiled abroad. Now she's on the verge of making history.

Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, 67, is set to become not just Liberia's first elected female president — but the first in Africa, and one of only a handful in the world.

"I hope young girls will now see me as a role model that will inspire them," Johnson-Sirleaf said an interview at her Monrovia villa late Monday. "I certainly hope more and more of them will be better off, women in Liberia, women in Africa, I hope even women in the world."

With more than 99 percent of ballots counted from a Nov. 8 runoff, Johnson-Sirleaf holds an apparently irreversible lead with 60 percent of the vote, compared to 40 percent for her soccer star opponent George Weah. He is contesting the poll, although international observers say it was fair.

A winner is unlikely to be declared for several more days while Weah's complaints are investigated.

Top female officials are rare in Africa, but there are a few — South Africa's deputy president, and prime ministers in Mozambique and the twin-island republic of Sao Tome and Principe.

Johnson-Sirleaf wants women to make up at least 30 percent of her own Cabinet.

"If you look around the continent, there are many women in Africa that are holding high positions, in parliament, in the ministries," she said. "Women are doing well, and I'm just going to be adding to that."

The widowed mother of four, who also has eight grandchildren, said it wasn't easy climbing the career ladder in a male-dominated world. She has served as her country's finance minister and taken on top jobs at Citibank and the United Nations.

"If you're competing with men as a professional, you have to be better than they are ... and make sure you get their respect as an equal," Johnson-Sirleaf said. "It's been hard. Even when you gain their acceptance, it's in a male-dominated way. They say, 'Oh, now she's one of the boys.'"

Buttons from her presidential campaign say it all: "Ellen — She's Our Man."

Johnson-Sirleaf said she swept floors and waited tables at a drugstore restaurant in Madison, Wis. while attending a business college there. Later, she earned a master's in public administration from Harvard University.

She was finance minister when an illiterate master sergeant launched a 1980 coup that saw a dozen other ministers executed. Although spared, she was jailed twice — once for seven months. Her aides say her captors threatened to kill her several times, carrying out mock executions.

Johnson-Sirleaf took on the country's most feared and powerful warlord, Charles Taylor, in 1997 elections. Although she lost by a landslide, she rose to national prominence, earning the nickname "Iron Lady."

Reaching out to her opponents will be key not only to Johnson-Sirleaf's success, but to peace and stability in Liberia, a country founded by freed American slaves in 1847 that has been torn by bloody coups and war since 1980. Around 200,000 people have died in the fighting, and millions have been displaced.

Johnson-Sirleaf said she would offer Weah a Cabinet post, and wants to bring in other rivals to form a "government of inclusion."

"The biggest challenge I have is that there will be all these disaffected political leaders, warlords and whatnot who are disgruntled, who would not like to see the success of the government," she said. "Much of their disenchantment is based on fear, fear that they will be brought to book for corruption or human rights abuses, and I've assured them there will be no witch-hunting, there will be no looking for skeletons in the closet."

Another item at the top of her agenda: making sure tens of thousands of ex-combatants, who laid down arms last year, are in school, in training programs, or employed. The jobless rate is estimated at 80 percent.

She said she will urge donors and international monetary organizations to cancel the country's crippling debt, which she said was $3.5 billion. The country's national budget is just $80 million.