Citizens against UP third term

Many callers on a live broadcast talk show attended by Unity Party campaign spokesman Amos Tweh here in Monrovia are unanimously against electing the ruling UP for a third term.

UP campaign spokesman Tweh on Thursday, 14 September was guest on a local radio station in Monrovia, seeking electorate support for the party’s current standard bearer, Vice President Joseph Nyumah Boakai, who is contesting to succeed President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf at the ballot box. Tweh outlines several achievements of the ruling party, including education, power, roads, among others, for which it should be given a third term, but many citizens who called on the live show, vehemently object the call.

They point to corruption, bad economy, including lack of price control and reconciliation as well as grinding poverty under the 12-year rule of the UP-led government as reasons why it should be retired at the ballot box, and are unanimously opposed to giving it a term third.

bOne caller from Sethi Brother community, Gardnersville on the outskirts of Monrovia, wonders whether Tweh, who works as an Assistant Minister at the Ministry of Internal Affairs ever went to bed without food or knows what it means to live with hunger.

They remind the UP campaign spokesman of Vice President Boakai’s own public confession that the UP-led government squandered most of the opportunities that came to the country during its two terms in office, noting the admission is enough justification why the ruling party does not deserve a third term.

Vice President Boakai is preaching continuity as a campaign slogan, telling electorate to love Liberia, think Liberia and build Liberia.Liberians go the poll on 10 October with a total of 21 candidates vying for the presidency, among them, Vice President Joseph Boakai, including six Independent Candidates, competing for the votes of 2,183,683 registered voters across Liberia.

-Story by Jonathan Browne