By Bill W. Cooper
The Standard Bearer of the Unity Party (UP), Joseph N. Boakai has reiterated calls for the replacement of the Chairperson and Board of Commissioners of the National Elections Commission (NEC) ahead of the 2023 general and presidential elections.
“The Unity Party and its allies are convinced that the current Elections Commission is not representative of the people’s interest and should therefore be scrapped and replaced by a competent and partisan free NEC to prepare for 2023 general and presidential elections,” he said.
Addressing a news conference yesterday in Monrovia, in response to the just ended Lofa County Senatorial rerun which witnessed independent candidate, Jospeh Jallh being pronounced winner, the UP leader among other things stressed that the current NEC team lacks the credibility and integrity to conduct any major, free fair and transparent elections in Liberia.
According to him, his party and other opposition allies have over and over, questioned the credibility and capacity of the NEC to conduct free and fair elections in Liberia owing to the fact that the country has come through so much and cannot continue to trade peace with a disorderly election.
He noted that the NEC open display of partisanship is also a troubling matter; something they do not believe that the Commission as currently constituted can hold credible elections in Liberia in 2023.
Commenting on the just ended Lofa County Senatorial By-election, VP Boakai pointed out that the conduct of the senatorial elections was marred by many irregularities which he some were outright illegal actions that impacted the results.
The UP Standard Bearer named NEC failure to conduct the replacement of lost and damaged voter registration cards in all districts across the county and the rejection of voters with valid voter registration cards to vote on election day on grounds that their names were not on the final voter roll as some of the missteps on the part of the NEC.
Others are the conflicting number of votes received by candidates, the appearance of candidates’ names more than one time on the NEC official website and the abrupt shutdown of the commission’s website following the discovery of the errors; something he said left many Liberians in dismay.
He added, “We cannot list all of the many data-related glitches that we have uncovered here. These two deliberate violations stated above clearly cast doubts on the validity of the results announced by the NEC and undermine the sanctity, credibility and integrity of the votes cast in Lofa County on June 28, 2022.”
Meanwhile, Amb. Boakia further revealed that his party’s legal team will be communicating with the NEC to establish their final position on result of the Lofa County election.
“We, therefore, ask our partisans, the United Nations, the United States of America, the European Union, the African Union, ECOWAS, and all friends of Liberia to ensure the future of our country in this endeavor,” he complained.
