By Bill W. Cooper
With barely six more days to the conduct of the Special Senatorial and National Referendum elections, the National Elections Commission (NEC) has embarked on a community engagement aimed at educating Liberians about the process.The launching of the community engagement came amid mounting pressure from several Opposition Political Parties, Civil Society Groupings, the Liberia Council of Churches (LCC), the Press Union of Liberia (PUL) including other well-meaning Liberians calling for the postponement/cancelation of the process.
Their calls for the government through the NEC to postpone/cancel the process are as the result of claims that the NEC has failed to carry on massive education/awareness of the process, thereby questioning the constitutionality of the referendum also.
Officially Launching the community engagement yesterday, at the Center for the Exchange of Intellectual Opinions (CEIO), the NEC chairperson Davidetta Brown-Lansanah said that the launching of the engagement will educate Liberians a little further about the pending senatorial, referendum and the two by-elections.
Madam Brown-Lansanah indicated that the engagement will also help Liberians understand and get the message and what the December 8 elections is all about owing to the fact that politics sometimes makes others to think twice before making a decision, though she said there is nothing wrong with that.
According to her, the citizenry are Liberia’s first and as such, she will endeavor to ensure that the NEC under her leadership takes part of the electoral process of the country by way of the NEC Civil Voter’s Education and Public Information among others.
She added, “Because you are very important to the process that we are going to undertake on December 8, I want you all to know that you will be voting 15 Senators into office, as well as also voting or answering ‘Yes or No’ on the 8 propositions of the referendum, including the casting of ballots for two Representatives by-elections in District #9, Montserrado and District #2 Sinoe Counties respectively.”
Meanwhile, the NEC chairperson further disclosed that the NEC is not a political organization and as such, as head of the NEC and all of the Board of Commissioners including various staffs of the Commission, are not partisans of any political parties as is being speculated in the public.