Boakai, Brumskine urged

A civil society organization called Movement for Democratic Transition (MODET) is calling on Liberia’s Vice President and ruling Unity Party presidential candidate Mr. Joseph Nyumah Boakai defeated opposition Liberty Party (LP) presidential candidate Cllr. Charles Walker Brumskine to allow democracy to flourish for the good of the country.

Addressing a news conference over the weekend in Sinkor, suburb of Monrovia, MODET Chairman Cyrus V. Zaway said they want to draw the attention of the Liberian people to the unfolding events in Liberia’s fragile democracy. Mr. Zaway says VP Boakai and Cllr. Brumskine’s alleged political marriage is on record for saying they will do everything to abort a supposedly “evil child” from being borne.

The group says it believes that this statement is not just scaring, but it is also diabolical and diametrical to the democratic transition that Liberians so wish to witness for the first time since 1944. According to Zaway, this clearly unveils their collective plan to delay the runoff election through a cynical political arrangement that will lead the country into a constitutional crisis and allow them argue for an interim government.

“This is rather the real situation that we must abort,” MODET says. The group’s chairman narrates that Vice President Boakai and Cllr. Brumskine must allow democracy to flourish, saying if Liberians are to experience true democracy and genuine peace, the will of the people must forever remain supreme as they strive to build a true culture of democracy.

“We the people, our votes, must be the decider of who becomes president of Liberia,” MODET adds. MODET continues that Liberia is at a critical juncture with a high degree of uncertainty since the National Elections Commission (NEC) made the final pronouncement of the first round election results and scheduled a runoff election for 7 November that was later halted by the Supreme Court due to a pending the case at the NEC.

Mr. Zaway says the ordinary people usually suffer when the politicians break things apart, warning that afar they can see cynical political arrangement and hypocritical endeavors to derail the peace and undermine the democracy. Meanwhile, the group has expressed frustration over the alleged silence of the Inter-religious Council, Liberian Council of Churches and the Women in Peace Building Network.

MODET says these groups were very instrumental in bringing to end the stalemate in the lower house of at the Legislature during the saga of former Speaker Alex Tyler. They recall that the women especially played a pivotal role by begging the former speaker to step down in the name of peace.

But they wonder why the women are not begging Cllr. Brumskine to abandon his action which according to them is by all indications holding the entire country hostage.

MODET says it has memberships including Association of the Masses for Change (AMCHA), Movement for the Emancipation of Liberia (MOEL), Women Consortium for Democratic Transition (WCFDT), Association of Lofain Stakeholders for Democracy, Islam Youth Consortium for Justice in Liberia, North Central Pastoral Network of Liberia.

By Lewis S. Teh–Edited by Winston W. Parley