By Grace Q. Bryant
The outgoing president of the Association of Liberian Journalists in Americas (ALJA), Joe S. Mason, is calling on the Government of Liberia to uphold its promises made during United Nations General Assembly by ensuring that the 2023 election is free and transparent.
Making remarks at the annual fundraising banquet of the 2022 National convention of the ALJA in the Armenian Church of Our Savior banquet in Worcester, Massachusetts, USA on Saturday, October 1, Mason maintained, “We acknowledge and are pleased by President Weah’s message at the United Nations General Assembly in which he promised all and sundry that the elections will be free.”
ALJA’s president also urged the Weah-led government to make good on that promise by providing an enabling environment for everyone, including the opposition, women, the underserved, the remote and isolated communities, as well as ensuring the necessary provisions to accommodate minority groups like the physically challenged, in order for the elections to be considered truly inclusive and fair.
“We know all too well that our country before the civil crisis has had a checkered history when it comes to the conduct of elections that are deemed free, fair and transparent. I am reminded of the elections of 1985. We can say without any form of ubiquity that the checkered history was in part responsible for our civil crisis,” president Mason noted.
“We therefore decided to focus on the 2023 General elections being ever mindful that these are consequential elections where transparent conduct or lack thereof could either solidify our democratic gains made so far, or set our country backwards,” he reminded.
President Mason noted, “We make this clarion call to the elections commission, which is the ultimate arbiter of the process, to ensure that free and fair elections are held.”
According to him, ALJA will continue to speak out as an institution, therefore and explore ways of partnering with other civil society organizations to ensure that issues which could potentially disenfranchise the electorates and infringe upon the integrity of the electoral process are brought to the attention of the government, the citizenry and the international community.
“As the country heads towards elections in the next 13 months, we cannot emphasize enough how important the role of the media will be as the ‘proverbial’ watchdogs of society in shining a spotlight on the issues, the candidates and the process prior to and during the actual conduct of the elections itself,” he emphasized.
President Mason noted that ALJA intends to increase its support and meet some of those needs as best as possible to ensure that the Liberian media is performing its responsibilities in a fair, balanced and ethical manners.
“We are also pleased with our collaboration with the Female Journalists Association of Liberia (FEJAL) that resulted in the provision of training and logistical support for a number of female journalists, including many from the different counties,” he mentioned.
He revealed that they are looking forward to building upon that relationship and more broadly engaging female media executives so that together they explore ways that ALJA can be more impactful.
