-Chairman Alexander Cummings
The Chairman of the Collaborating Political Parties and Standard Bearer of the opposition Alternative National Congress Mr. Alexander B. Cummings has vowed that the CPP will defend herself if attacked in the upcoming December 8th special senatorial election.
“I don’t want to be provocative in anyway, but we in the CPP will defend ourselves if anyone attack us”, chairman Cummings vows and underscores, “We want violent free elections, because we will exercise our franchise in a non-violent way, but it’s up to the GOL [Government of Liberia] to ensure that the December 8 elections are free, fair, transparent and violent free.”
He gave the caution over the weekend while appearing on Prime FM in Monrovia where he discussed wide range of national issues relating to conduct of the December 8 special senatorial and representative by-elections and the CPP’s participation, among others.
When asked whether there were internal wrangling within the CPP, Mr. Cummings said in any collaboration, there would always be disagreements, different point of views, saying, “it may surprise people to know that we in the CPP talk regularly especially, heads of political parties.
He said sometimes partisans of the Collaboration get carried away and express those frustrations, but as of now, they are focused on supporting all 15 candidates contesting on the CPP tickets, “and I’m confident that if we have a transparent, violent free election, the CPP will win all the 15 seats in the upcoming December 8 senatorial election across the fifteen counties.”
Coming from the corporate world, Mr. Cummings vied for the presidency in 2017 thru his Alternative National Congress, but lost to Mr. George Manneh Weah like the rest of the three parties making up the CPP.
The Collaboration is a conglomeration of the Alternative National Congress, All Liberian Party, Liberty Party and the former ruling Unity Party of ex-Vice President Joseph NyumahBoakia.
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“Look, let me say this; the CPP can win all of those fifteen seats in the upcoming December 8, senatorial election, but that depends if this government through the National Elections Commission will conduct the election in a free, transparent, and fair manner.”
At the same time he expresses frustration in the recent Supreme Court’s dismissal of a writ of mandamus filed by the CPP saying, “We were very disappointed in the decision of the Supreme Court, because this is a court in 2017 [that] mandated the cleaning of the voters roll.
He recalls an ECOWAS team came to Liberia in 2017 and admitted that the voters roll was marred by fraud and needed to be cleaned up adding, in June of this year a joint resolution from the Legislature signed by the President makes it a law to have the VR cleaned of multiple registrants.
He points that none of those ever happened, something, he says frustrated the CPP, and became disappointed in the High Court’s decision, which he describes as trivialization of its duties to uphold rule of law and the Constitution of Liberia.
By Lewis S. Teh–Editing by Jonathan Browne
