An election is defined as a formal decision-making process by which a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold public office; however, there are individuals who get elected by simple majority and there are those who come to the position by the “mandate” of the electorate. In the case of the just-ended Lofa County senatorial by-election, it can be concluded that both the CDC-supported candidate, Cllr. Joseph Jallah, and the UP candidate, Galakpai Kortimai, were directly rejected by the electorate; they accumulated less than 12% of the total registered voters.
A mandate in politics, or “popular mandate”, refers to the idea that a political official has been elected because the public strongly supports their platform and wants to see them enacted. But this was far from being the case in Lofa, with 125,256 voters, constituting 66.71% of the registered voters, vehemently refusing to turn out to vote in the election.
Lofa County has a total number of 187,775 registered voters and 162 polling precincts, but only 62,519, constituting 33.29% of that number, voted during the process. Out of the 62,519 votes, UP’s Kortimai obtained 21,299, and the winner, Cllr. Jallah, obtained 22,019 votes.
The percentage of Jallah’s votes over the total number of registered voters is a pitiful 11.72%, while Kortimai’s percentage stands at 11.30%. Statistically, about 88.28% of the registered voters of Lofa County rejected the new senator-elect, in addition to those who did not register to vote.
Unfortunately, Cllr. Jallah, heavily supported by the ruling establishment, CDC, which has access to the national coffers, and after spending millions of dollars to the disadvantage of the Unity Party candidate who did not have half of what they spent, acclaimed victory with less than 1% of the votes casted. After deploying all of their human resources and their financial might, the CDC-supported candidate won by a pitiful 0.42%.
Meanwhile, it is being argued that this is the least turnout for an election since the 2005 general and presidential elections.
The massively poor turnout on election day is being blamed on alleged voter intimidation and electoral violence that ensued between the rival candidates.
In its preliminary statement on the senatorial by-election in Lofa County, the Elections Coordinating Committee (ECC) observed that on June 29, 2022, the day after the election, tension ensued between rival supporters of Unity Party’s Glakpai Kortimai and independent candidate Joseph Jallah, following separate pronouncements on radio stations in Foya District, with both sides claiming victory and calling on their respective supporters to celebrate.
The election was also preceded by a violent clash between Jallah and Kortimai’s supporters, resulting into Representative Yekeh Kolubah claiming that his car’s windshield was broken. He insisted that Representative Thomas Fallah was behind the violence, and insisted that he would pay for the windshield.
It can be said that the UP and CDC had no impact in the election, and arguably nothing to boast of. With all the wasteful spending by the CDC, one is left to wonder whether Jallah is even worth to be called a senator after only 22,019 (11.72%) out of 187,775 (100%) voters giving him the go-ahead to represent them at the Liberian Senate.