The Liberian National Bar Association (LNBA), in collaboration with the National Elections Commission (NEC) through the United Development Program (UNDP) Electoral Support Project, has climaxed an engagement dialogue seeking commitment on post-election democracy and peace consolidation.
The stakeholders’ engagement dialogue, which was held over the weekend at the LNBA office, was graced by civil society organizations, security actors, religious leaders, media community as well as members of the public and others stakeholders.
The engagement dialogue brought to a closure the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) Electoral Support Project (LNBACNP) that was launched on September 19, 2023, which aimed at strengthening the legal capacity of Liberian lawyers and providing civic engagement for stakeholders across the fifteen counties of Liberia.
The project came about as a result of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) among stakeholders, which included the LNBA and the NEC, to execute a grant of US$150,000.
The objective of the project is to initiate collaboration with the NEC and stakeholders to ensure successful conduct of the 2023 presidential and legislative elections and support the NEC on its effectiveness in the disposal of election cases and increase public knowledge, particularly lawyers, aspirants and political parties and leaders of legal electoral process to reduce court dockets.
The project also seeks to enable election stakeholders to fully understand the distinction between courtroom litigation process and administrative hearings conducted before NEC.
Giving the introductory remark, LNBA President, Cllr. Sylvester D. Rennie, extolled the participants for honoring the invitation for the closure of the project, saying that the consolidation of Liberia’s peace and democracy rests on the collective effort of everyone.
“Today marks the closure of a program that was birthed in September. The concept was developed by the LNBA to ensure there be a partnership with NEC in connection with electoral programs. Now, we have come to see how we can brainstorm on the consolidation of Liberia’s peace and democracy. On that basis, we have called you here for us to brainstorm,” Cllr. Rennie stated.
According to him, based upon some missteps they saw along the way on the part of lawyers and NEC, they decided to come in to build the capacity of lawyers, civil society organizations, media and stakeholders to ensure peaceful elections and understanding of legal electoral processes.
Cllr. Rennie noted that, due to the fact that not understanding the laws sometimes created problem in the past, the LNBA sees the decongestion of electoral complaints of political parties and lawyers as a major concern to be addressed with urgency.
“Also, during the program the security sector was informed about their roles and responsibilities because people being partisan security around here. First phase of the dialogue we visited Montserrado, Nimba, Grand Bassa, Bomi, Grand Gedeh, and the last phase concluded the rest of the counties. We also provided civic education during the runoff election,” he observed.
For his part, the National Secretary General of the Civil Society and Human Rights Advocacy, Adama K. Dempster, said they are partnership with LNBA in regard to the post-election, and equally they want to share their thoughts on the entire election process.
He stated that the civil society organizations, in line with LNBA’s own engagement with the human rights communities, they are glad to go through the election process.
He further stated that they are following and having discussion on how to engage the new government on the wide range of promises they made during the campaign period.