ELECTORAL DISPUTE MANAGEMENT has claimed the attention of the government, stakeholders and political actors, and hence a response mechanism is being put into place a few months to the October 10, 2023 general and presidential elections. The West Africa Network for Peace Building (WANEP) has officially launched the Electoral Violence Monitoring Analysis and Mitigation (E-MAM 2023-2026) Project for the October 10, 2023 general and presidential elections. At WANEP’s three-day capacity building training for CSOs/NGOs, held at the Corina Hotel, Monrovia, the Executive Director of Liberia Peace Building Office, Ministry of Internal Affairs, Edward Mulbah, called on the CDC government to act in accordance with the law and foster the peace in Liberia.
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR MULBAH cautioned that the election “should not carry us to the dark days; instead, it should help to promote peace for the country, now that we are at a point where we need to maintain the peace”.
THIS RESPONSE MECHANISM follows the creeping wave of electoral violence since the National Elections Commission (NEC) announced the beginning of campaign. On Thursday, August 10, 2023 the CDC had the approval to be in districts #9 and #10, but their crowd unfortunately bumped into those from the Unity Party (UP) and Montserrado County’s district #10 independent candidate and incumbent Representative, Yekeh Kolubah, who had gone to carry out separate campaign activities. This resulted into one of the early marks of campaign violence, although the Liberia National Police (LNP) has warned that individuals and groups engaging in election violence will be delt with in accordance with the law.
ACCORDING TO HIM, “The next few days we will be celebrating 20 years of peace since the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement on August 18, 2003. So what are we doing to make sure the Farmington Declaration live on and the CPA?” He also called on all government entities to be protective of every election participant, and urged political parties to act rightly.
THE CENTRALITY OF the nation’s hard-earned peace and stability to the conduct of the October 10 polls has led the involvement of major national, regional and international stakeholders, such as the National Center for the Coordination of the Response Mechanism (NCCRM), Election Coordinating Committee (ECC), Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and European Union (EU) Delegation, in the response mechanism.
THE RESPONSE MECHANISM training, which started on Tuesday, August 15, 2023 and ends on Thursday, August 17, 2023, is drilling participants in the types of electoral disputes/violence, causes of electoral disputes, manifestations of election disputes, analysis of election disputes, tools for analyzing election disputes and application of analytical tools in an effort to advert any and all forms of electoral violence that might prove threatening to the holding of a violence-free October 10, 2023 general and presidential elections.