The National Elections Commission (NEC) has placed the Chairman of the Liberty Party (LP), Musa Hassan Bility, in total control of the party by recognizing and affirming the party’s January 2021 convention and upholding the new LP constitution filed with the commission.
The NEC position on the matter has finally laid to rest the matter of whether Bility has been expelled from his Chairmanship position or whether his decision to suspend some members of the party’s executives, including the Political Leader, Senator Nyonblee Karnga-Lawrence, and the Vice Chair for Political Affairs, Senator Abraham Darius Dillon, is legitimate.
A recent NEC communication informed the Political Leader that her decision to withdraw the LP constitution filed with the NEC and declare the party’s 2021 convention null and void are absolutely not recognized by the NEC, and the commission fully recognizes Bility as the legitimate Chairman of the party until the constitution is challenged.
In a letter, dated January 10, 2022 and addressed to Senator Karnga-Lawrence, the NEC said, “We present compliments on behalf of the National Elections Commission (NEC), and write in response to your December 20, 2021 letter to the Commission, in which you expressed concern about the Commission’s December 13, 2021 letter to you, sent under the signature of Cllr. P. Teplah Reeves, Co-Chair of the National Elections Commission.
“Principally, you stated that the December 13, 2021 letter is a violation of your ‘due process and the established rules and procedures of the National Elections Commission to hear and determine complaints/objections’. You also stated that the letter should not have been signed by the Co-Chair alone. Accordingly, you asked us to recall/revoke the referenced December 13, 2021 letter.
“In reference to the above, we invited you and Hon. Musa H. Bility (as a party of interest) to a meeting on January 7, 2022, with this Board of Commissioners. Based on objections from your lawyers, the meeting was not held and we promised to reply your December 20, 2021 letter in writing. Having considered the matter, we would like to inform you as follow:
“1. As to your due process concern, the question for us is whether or not your November 15, 2021 letter to the Commission was a complaint or an appeal for a hearing. We do not view your November 15, 2021 letter as a complaint or an objection; therefore, no hearing was required.
“2. At the time the December 13, 2021 letter was sent to you, Chairperson Browne Lansanah had traveled out of the country and Co-Chair Reeves was acting in her stead. A review of the matter shows that Cllr. Reeves, acting in her administrative function, listed in the referenced December 13, 2021 letter, the complaints and other documentations the Commission had received from you and Hon. Bility, respectively; the outcome of the conference held between you and Hon. Bility by the NEC Political Affairs section; and the Political Affairs’ August 23, 2021 communication to you as to how the Liberty Party’s 2021 notarized constitution, emanating from the Party’s January 22—24, 2021 Special Convention held in Gbarnga, Bong County, can be withdrawn in keeping with due process or via amendment by the party.
“Honorable Senator, for the benefit of this response, we herein quote the second paragraph of the August 23, 2021 communication the Political Affairs Section sent you: ‘In keeping with the practice and procedure here at the NEC, when a party, especially through its Chairperson and/or Secretary General submits a notarized document such as constitution to the Commission, the general presumption is that said document is proper and remains as such until successfully challenged in keeping with due process or amended by the Party.’
“We note that no objection was registered with the NEC concerning the said August 23, 2021 communication. We further note that the Commission’s December 13, 2021 letter did not touch on whatever matter of the LP that may be pending before the NEC Political Affairs section. The letter also did not say that the LP’s notarized 2021 constitution cannot be challenged or amended; rather, the letter repeated the information provided in our August 23, 2021 communication to you concerning how said constitution may be successfully challenged or amended by the LP.
“Accordingly, we are of the opinion that the Co-Chair acted within her authority to inform the LP about its 2021 notarized constitution that was filed with the Commission on February 26, 2021, and to restate the information in our August 23, 2021 communication to you concerning how same may be challenged or amended.”
The NEC communication comes at a time the Standard Bearer of the Alternative National Congress (ANC), who is aligned with Bility, is making breakthroughs in the case filed against him by the All Liberian Party (ALP) at the Monrovia City Court. Cummings has challenged prosecutors to provide their evidence against him and, instead of doing so, the prosecution is begging for time to galvanize witnesses and compile their pieces.
The Judge of the Monrovia City Court, Jomah Jallah, has however given the prosecution lawyers an ultimatum to present their pieces of evidence will leave him with no alternative but to dismiss the matter.
If Cummings is cleared of all the charges and Bility’s decision of suspending Karnga-Lawrence upheld, this could be the beginning of a political force that could possibly become the main opposition to President George M. Weah and his Coalition for Democratic Change (CDC) during the 2023 general and presidential elections, as ANC and LP, on one hand, by far outweigh ALP and UP on another.