By Emmanuel wise Jipoh
Montserrado County Electoral District #2 representative candidate Bishop Nimely J. Doryen has rejected the results of the National Elections Commission (NEC) for the district seat.
The NEC has declared opposition Unity Party (UP) candidate Sekou Kanneh as winner of the representative seat.
But Bishop Doryen who contested as an independent candidate wants the NEC to do a recount of ballot papers in the Montserrado County electoral district #2 representative race.
Doryen alleged that results shown by the NEC have alleged by been manipulated.
Results announced by the NEC on Tuesday, 17 October 2023, placed Mr. Kanneh ahead with a total of 9,965 votes above his challenger, Bishop Doryen, who received 9,444 votes.
The NEC said Kanneh has reclaimed the seat he lost in 2017 to out-going Representative Jimmy Smith.
Smith also contested the election as an independent candidate after his ruling Coalition for Democratic Change (CDC) backed the candidacy of Koko Bofo.
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The NEC said Mr. Kanneh has won slightly ahead of Bishop Doryen.
Speaking Wednesday evening, Bishop Doryen who heads the Independent Catholic Church of Liberia claimed he had won the election.
He claimed that the results obtained by his agents, tallied from every polling place in the district, gave him the confidence that he had won.
“If ballots are counted and numbers are registered, they remain the same and mathematics don’t lie,” he argued.
“We had our observers everywhere in every tally room, so nothing going to be fraudulent against us and we accept it,” he noted.
The Bishop insisted that there must be a mistake that NEC has made in tallying the results from his district.
“This is why we have written them a complaint about the mistake, and urged for retally of the results, as a servant of God,” he added.
“We are honored to accepting the truth, nothing different from the truth, and we are going to pursue [the] results to the end,” said Father Doryen.
He claimed that there was overwhelming evidence available that makes it impossible for him to accept the hurried results.
He said he will not sit there and his rights be taken away, adding: “We have won this election and we are confident of our tally.”
