Delegates to the former ruling Unity Party’s (UP) will converge in Gbarnga, Bong County today to begin a national convention for the election of new corps officers.
The party shall also adopt its revised constitution and adopt the 2023 platform ahead of the presidential and legislative elections scheduled for next year.
But most importantly, who becomes the party’s next national chairperson and national secretary general are top positions expected to be contested with the names of Luther Tarpeh and Amos Tweh already surfacing.
Those tipped for the contest will be going against the incumbents, Businessman Chairperson Amin Modad, Secretary General Mohammed Ali and others for the various positions at the end of the party’s three-day convention.
Tweh once served as national youth’s chairperson of the party while Tarpeh, the incumbent vice chairperson formally joined the party in 2020.
According to the report, 24 national positions are up for grasp at the party’s national convention including the standard bearership.
Others are the national vice chairperson for administration, national vice chairperson for governmental affairs and internal relations, national vice chairperson for inter-party relations and national elections committee affairs, national vice chairperson for mobilization, membership and recruitment.
The positions in the party’s secretariat including the national deputy secretary general for training and research and national treasurer are areas opened for contestation.
Last month the UP as one of those parties that was formed when the ban on political activities was lifted in 1984 by the defunct military junta the People’s Redemption Council (PRC) recently withdrew from the Collaborating Political Parties (CPP) which was becoming a beacon of hope for many Liberians who are eagerly looking out for a replacement of the Weah-led government.
It was formed by the former Minister of Internal Affairs, formerly local government, the late Edward Beyan Kesselly and Henry Boima Fahnbulleh, Sr.
Kesselly because its first standard bearer when the party was officially founded in Buchanan, Grand Bassa County on July 27, 1985.
The Unity Party participated in the first elections after the 1980 coup, running against President Samuel Doe in October 1985 and since then, the party has remained active in Liberian politics.
In the elections held on July 19, 1997, the UP presidential candidate, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, won with 9.58 percent of the vote. The party won 7 of then 64 seats in the House of Representatives and 3 of the then 26 in the Senate.
While international observers deemed the polls administratively free and transparent, they noted that it had taken place in an atmosphere of intimidation because most voters believed that former rebel leader and National Patriotic Party (NPP) candidate Charles Taylor would return to war if defeated.
Unity Party candidate Sirleaf won the 2005 presidential elections, defeating George Weah of the Congress for Democratic Change (CDC) in a run-off. The party also won 3 seats in the Senate and 8 in the House of Representatives.
The merger of the Liberia Unification Party (LUP) and the Liberia Action Party into the Unity Party on April 1, 2009 substantially increased its representation in the Legislature.
The party lost in the run-off of the 2017’s presidential and representatives elections to George Weah and on January 13, 2018 the party expelled President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Conmany Wesseh, Medina Wesseh and others for allegedly campaigning for and with Weah against her own Vice President, Joseph Boakai, who was campaigning on the party ticket.
