The National Election Commission (NEC) is concerned over the continued violation by violators of the election law as the October elections draw nearer.
Speaking on Friday at the occasion making the signing of the Farmington River Declaration by aspirants and political parties who have just submitted their application to the nomination process for the October 10, 2023 elections, the Chairperson of the National Elections Commission (NEC), Davidetta Browne Lansanah, expressed concern over the continued violations by political parties and independent candidates.
According to Browne Lansanah, people seeking public office should be responsible and abide by the rules and regulations of the election law.
She said the commission issued an ultimatum for all paraphernalia, including speeches, posters, billboards, etc., to be taken down, and set a committee, headed by the political affairs section with other members, tasked to document pre-campaign violators.
She observed that the committee captured 201 violators, and 50% of those violators were from political parties. The political parties that were fined for violations include Collaborating Political Parties (CPP), the Coalition for Democratic Change (CDC), and the Unity Party (UP).
She added that all of the commission’s announcements seem to have fallen to deaf ears, terming it as disrespect and disregard for the rule of law and the commission by political parties and individuals who want to become the government.
“So the question now is, with these violations on-going as we are approaching the process to qualify candidates, where do we go from here? This is troubling,” the NEC Chairperson wondered.
“People must be responsible. You cannot violate and expect that you are going to run the country and expect that Liberians will have respect for you. This is not the way to go.
“I am not a politician, just a technician at the National Elections Commission (NEC) where we subscribe to rules, regulations and guidelines, given the authority by the Constitution of Liberia and the New Election Law.
“We sit here today, very respectable people, yet we have not done what should be expected of us, and this is very sad,” Chairperson Browne Lansanah cautioned.
In relation to the question asked by the NEC, political aspirants made comments urging NEC to apply the necessary punishment against political parties that violate the election law in regards to pre-campaigning.
“We are watching and looking at NEC… if you can’t clean this up right now we are not very sure that you will do a good job at announcing fair judgment,” the political aspirants observed.
“We want the NEC to garner the courage to really punish groups, name and shame them, and if there is any rules where people who are violators should not just be fined at that but they should be stopped from participating in the election—if you don’t have I don’t know what the procedure is,” said Rev. David Kermu, Political Leader of the Democratic People’s Party of Liberia (DPPL).
John Newton Forkoleh, district #1, Margibi County, said NEC should come up with a decision and not ask the audience what should be done about electoral violence or pre-campaigning process, but should state clearly what should be considered as pre-campaigning because the law states the right to assemble and disassemble, so people could gather for different purposes and could be termed as pre campaigning. They said NEC in her power should be able to set apart some of the things that constitute pre-campaigning.
“The Constitution of Liberia is a contract between government and the governed. We expect the NEC to go by the Constitution of Liberia. You are a constituted authority; we expect you to go ahead and take the necessary decisions in line with the Constitution,” said J Alexander Zobay, senatorial aspirant of Bong County, Greater Action Party of Liberia.