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The Liberian 2017 Presidential Runoff Election: Who Will Win?

Feature Article The Liberian 2017 Presidential Runoff Election: Who Will Win?
DEC 27, 2017 LISTEN

On December 26, 2017, Liberians will return to the polls for the presidential runoff election. The winner will replace President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, whose term will expire in January 2018. According to the Liberian constitution, she cannot serve more than two terms.

On October 10 this year the first round was held. The election results showed that Senator George Weah of the Coalition for Democratic Change, CDC received 38.4% of the national votes, Vice President Joseph Boakai of the ruling Unity Party, UP got 28.8% while Counselor Charles Brumskine of the Liberty Party, LP received 9.6%. Because no party received 50% plus one vote as requires by the Liberian constitution, a runoff election was set on November 7 between Senator Weah and Vice President Boakai.

However, LP filed a writ of prohibition with the Supreme Court requesting that the runoff election be halted because the party had filed a complaint of election irregularities and frauds with the National Election Commission (NEC) and the commission has not ruled on the case. The court granted the writ and ordered NEC to investigate the complaints.

Meanwhile, the Unity Party joined the Liberty Party in the complaint as an intervener. In the investigation of the complaints, NEC ruled against the complainant and its intervening party. Both parties went back to the court requesting a rerun of the election. In early December the court denied the request but ordered NEC to clean up the voter registration roll, publish the roll and the commissioners should refrain from making unlawful public statements pertaining to election matters. The court also lifted the earlier prohibition and told NEC to schedule the runoff election between UP and CDC.

NEC scheduled the runoff for December 26; however, UP filed a bill of information writ with the court, questioning NEC authority to select the runoff date and requesting a later date in consultation and approval of the legislature. The party further questioned the timely readiness of NEC to clean up the voter roll. The court denied the bill and therefore the runoff will be held as scheduled.

While LP legal action has received praises from some quarters of the Liberian people, it has reduced voters’ enthusiasm for the runoff. Some observers have pointed out the economic impact of the delay has caused such as the increase of the exchange rate of the US dollar and the rise of commodity price, including cost of local goods in the market.

This weekend, December 22-24, was the climax of the respective campaign of the two parties, the CDC and UP. Prior to the weekend, most of the officials of the Liberty Party endorsed CDC. They include the party Vice Standard Bearer Harrison Karnwea, Chairman Benjamin Sanvee, and CEO Musa Bility. Ambassador Jeremiah Sulunteh, vice standard bearer of the Alternative National Congress, ANC and Alexander Dupoi, vice standard bearer of the All Liberian Party, ALP have endorsed CDC.

The Unity Party received some endorsements also, including businessman Benoni Urey, standard bearer of ALP. While many key members of the defeated parties have endorsed CDC, some rank and file members of these parties have embraced the ruling party. Charles Brumskine and Alexander Cummings, standard bearers of LP and ANC respectively have decided not to endorse any party. During LP complaints to NEC and later to the Supreme Court, the three opposition parties, LP, ANC and ALP were collaborating with the ruling party. It was Unity Party hope for the parties to endorse UP in the runoff. Liberty Party had won Bassa County and came second in Margibi County, two of the six populated counties in Liberia. The expected endorsement of LP would have helped UP to capture these counties to help improve the party numbers in the runoff. The party was also looking forward to Cummings support. He came second in the Montserrado County votes. The county is the largest populated area in Liberia and has over 700,000 registered voters, the largest.

Some analysts are not surprised of the neutrality of the two political leaders. Most of their respective party members or key members have left and therefore the two leaders have no major followers to bring to the table. Some party members expressed disappointment in Cummings. He joined the fry, the legal battle, with no fish to fry. He was criticized for depending heavily on party members residing in the US on major decisions regarding the party’s operation in Liberia. Moreover, he was inconsistent in some decisions.

Brumskine and the VP had been at each other from the beginning of the campaign. In early 2017, the issue of ethnicity surfaced in the election. Brumskine and the vice president accused each other of tribalism; a matter of Congo/Americo-Liberians vs. Natives. Brumskine was called a Congo man and Boakai, a native man, a son of the soil. The Boakai camp and the UP organization also accused Bromskine of receiving support from President Sirleaf. This friction did not go away before the NEC and court complaints. Thus the court collaboration was a “forced marriage” for political expedience for the sole benefit of UP.

Brumskine knew or should have known that he stands no chance of gaining more votes to put him at second or first place if the court had ruled for a rerun. But why did he seek the “marriage”? Desperation, glory and ego were the possible reasons: he and his party wanted all the helps they could get. The Unity Party has support and contacts in the court. Brumskine’s victory in the case would help not only his party but also his professional career. Had he won; history would favorably remember him as the lawyer who won a landmark election case in the Supreme Court.

Benoni Urey is the only political leader of a major and established party who supports the vice president in this second round. But Urey’s support has no weight. He received less than 2% of the national votes in the first round. Like Cummings, Urey’s party did not win a single representative seat in the election. As stated before, his vice standard bearer left the party for CDC. Urey has a bad blood with CDC. His endorsement of VP Boakai was purposely to get back at President Sirleaf who terminated him from his appointment as Mayor of Careyburg, his birth place. His business, LoneStar Cell has had trouble with the Sirleaf administration. The president is said, without concrete facts, to supporting CDC and not supporting her vice president Boakai. Apparently, Urey hopes, if Boakai wins, LoneStar cell would benefit while getting back at the president. This strategy, if it is, could backfire.

The public mood for the runoff election is not as great as it was in the first round. You could see that at the victory gathering of each party. I attended CDC march at the Samuel K. Doe stadium last Saturday. The crowd was large, but it did not fill the entire stadium to capacity.

Traffic was heavy. It took me about three hours to get to the stadium. I traveled from one taxi to another. In the taxi from Broad Street to ELWA junction, the driver was a UP partisan as he said. We were five passengers, one in front and four in the back. Three passengers stated that they were Boakai supporters. The passenger sitting next to me in the back had poster picture of Boakai with him. The passenger on the far left, from his talk, could be a CDC supporter. He was arguing with the UP supporters. I remained quiet enjoying the conversation. The driver stopped the radio broadcasting the CDC march. I was also listening to the broadcast and asked why he changed the dial? “This car is a UP car”, he responded. “This taxi was bought by speaker Nuquay”, he said further. Representative Nuquay, who is speaker of the House of Representatives, is UP vice standard bearer. I just listened to the driver; I asked no addition question and neither argued.

In Liberia I observe that you would be wasting your breath if you get in a heavy political debate where the opponents outnumber you. If you are a stranger with a non-Liberian accent, you could be branded as a foreigner interfering in Liberian domestic affairs.

I arrived at my destination about 5 pm. The entrance of the stadium was parked. But as I indicated earlier, about half of the arena was empty. About 7PM, Weah and his entourage arrived. More people came in increasing the attendance to about 75% of the capacity. I stayed until 8. The program had not started yet. My distance home was far, so I left. I listened to the program on the radio at home.

Weah talked about the change that will come to Liberia under a CDC led government. Power will go back to the people. Liberia will become a true independent country. Children’s WASCE fees will be paid; they will go to school without worrying about WASCE fees; the sick will get heath care without worrying about hospital fees. He thanked the CDCians for trusting in him and for making him their standard bearer. He said that he will not disappoint them and the Liberian people.

He went back to his soccer playing dates and remembered the SKD Stadium “This place changed my life”. It is a ground that brought me joy. Just as I did not neglect you when I was away, I will not forget you and the Liberian people when I am president.

I over slept due to staying out late for writing an article for publication. I was tired and could not attend

UP victory march at the party headquarters. I listened to the program however on the radio. VP

Boakai’s remark was short. He said that Liberia has been taken for granted, that people should settle for

the best. “We have to make this country proud”, he said, adding “each and every one of you has to

represent the best”. He told the audience that he has recorded the rest of the speech on a tape and it

will be broadcast later.
In the recorded speech, the vice president said that he loves Liberia and is dedicated to the interest and

betterment of the country. He spoke of his plan to build roads, roads, roads so that farmers would easily

bring their goods to the market. FrontPage Africa reported that the VP looked stressed out at the

gathering. The above gatherings of the two parties climaxed their respective election campaign. All

campaign activities ended Sunday midnight.
WHO WILL WIN?
The October 10 first round results should give an indication on how the runoff results would be. To restate, the results were:

CDC won 11 of the 15 counties of Liberia. UP won 2, including Lofa County, VP Boakai’s home county. LP won 1, Grand Bassa, Bromskine’s birthplace. The Movement for Democratic Restoration, MDR of Senator Prince Johnson received 8.2% of the national votes, placing him fourth. He captured Nimba, his stronghold, which is the second largest populated county behind Montserrado, the most populated area in Iberia.

CDC won 3 of the 6 largest counties, including Bong and Margibi. These two counties are not traditionally CDC strongholds. But in this election, they fell to the party. CDC won Sinoe and the rest of the Southeastern counties, including River Gee, a traditionally UP stronghold.

Several factors changed the dynamics of the runoff election. Few weeks before the court proceedings, Prince Johnson endorsed George Weah of CDC. The endorsement is very important in that, as I stated earlier, Nimba is the senator’s stronghold, which he won with over 50% of the country votes in the first round.

This endorsement sent a chill in the spine of UP, forcing the party to join LP in the lawsuit. UP hoped to have gotten LP support for votes in Grand Bassa. The court final decision and the overwhelming endorsement of LP members to CDC nailed the coffin of the hope. This means that CDC could win 5 of the 6 largest counties.

I have stated in one of my previous analyses that if CDC gain the support of LP, MDR and other members of the Ganta Declaration, CDC could win the runoff election by landslide. In September 2016, major opposition parties met in Ganta, Nimba and agreed to support any opposition party which goes to the runoff against the ruling party. This declaration was the brain child of Senator Johnson. I said that if CDC receives support from half of the other Ganta opposition parties, CDC would still win but the margin of victory would be smaller.

UP may have known this and therefore played delay tactics with the legal complaints. The longer they delay, the frustration they would cause regarding a runoff and the possibility for the formation of a transitional government. There could be some problems however with the runoff. Because of the delay, voters’ enthusiasm and desire to vote in the election could be reduced, resulting in low voter turnout. This could help the ruling party. Moreover, having an election just a day after Christmas could make some voters not to vote because of holiday handovers. This too could benefit UP.

In short, however, CDC stands a better chance to win the election if it maintains its ground game, together with support from members of the other opposition parties. The election will cause the peaceful transition of power over from one elected president to another elected leader since 1944.

The transition would be historical!

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