By Grace Q. Bryant
The Election Coordinating Committee (ECC), Oscar Bloh, has challenged the full bench of the Judiciary to cancel the October 10 Presidential and legislative elections result if the procedures and laws are not followed.
Speaking during the Liberian National Bar Association (LNBA) celebration of Law Day, ECC’s chairperson Bloh urged the Supreme Court to cancel the elections result if they notice any fraud and irregularities in its result.
He appealed to the Supreme Court not to be deterred by the financial implications involved with the cancellation of the elections result, but the right things should be done.
He added, “You should not be lost with the financial implications over the conduct of a re-election if the procedures are not followed. The outcomes are just dividing. I, again challenge the court that we have resources in this country. We must protect our democracy; we must protect our electoral process as laid down
in the laws,” ECC Chairperson urged.
Giving precedent of other cases in Africa, ECC Bloh named Ivory Coast, Malawi and Kenya as countries that recently cancelled elections result and went for re-elections because they noticed that procedures and laws were not followed.
“The foundation of our democracy is in the judiciary. We see best practices from across Africa beginning with Ivory coast where few years ago the Supreme Court cancelled elections result. We also saw that in 2017 in Kenya where the Judiciary was courage to cancel the elections result when the sitting President was challenged,” he disclosed.
Mr. Bloh indicated that in 2019, folks in Malawi learned from the experienced of Kenya, and cancelled their election result because of procedures error.
He noted that citizens are complaining about the BVR process, about material malfunctioning, delayed in the registration process due to limited knowledge of staff to operate the system among others, something he urged the government to address in order to improve the quality of the country’s democracy.
“There are new challenges and so we hope that the government will have enacted major provisions in the current election law of Liberia; also going to these elections in an environment of polarized media, particularly community radios that are own, operated and finance by politicians both in and outside of government,” he added.
According to him, every citizen is aware that the Liberian National Police is under resources both in Human capacity as well as finance and logistics capacity.
Cllr. Bloh urged that as politicians go into the campaign activities, the electoral process is going to heighten and there is a risk for electoral violence.
The Liberian National Bar Association on Friday, May 5, joined the rest of the world in celebration of Law Day which was held at the EJS Ministerial Complex outside Monrovia bringing together hundreds of lawyers, law students including the Justices and others members of the diplomatic corps and international diplomats.
The program was celebrated under the theme: ‘Episode of electoral violence and prospects for Constitutional democracy in Liberia.’
Law Day is held annually on May 1, as a national day set aside to celebrate the rule of law. Law Day provides an opportunity to understand how law and the legal process protect liberties, strives to achieve justice and contributes to the freedoms.
Each year, in commemoration of this day, in addition to the series of activities, including our engagement with the public in creating awareness on the rule of law, the Liberian National Bar Association designates a theme to highlight important issues in its jurisdiction that affects or has the propensity of affecting the legal system and the country’s democracy.
