Election worries Boakai

Unity Party Presidential hopeful, Vice President Joseph NyumaBoakai has expressed deep worries about smooth conduct of elections in October. Mr. Boakai, who is also President of the Liberian Senate said, the biggest challenge the country is faced with this 2017 is Presidential and Representatives elections barely 10 months down the road.

“We can realistically expect this huge national undertaking to bring with it the spasm of tensions, emotions, and even suspicions that normally accompany elections. My trust is that we will never fail to live up to our noble designation as the upper house and, even more so, the house of elders,” he said.

Speaking Tuesday, January 10, in the chambers of the Liberian Senate, Boakai urged Liberians to stay away from acts and utterances that send a wrong signal to the people that elections are similar to civil wars.

According to him, far from that, elections make a beautiful and fulfilling aspect of the democratic system of governance; noting that taking part in an election should be about offering oneself to serve.

He added that the upcoming polls should never be a must win or perish trying to, situation, which would engender unsavory acts aimed at reaping undeserved rewards. “We have been there before and we can do it again, notwithstanding the current reality that our national security and law enforcement lie for the large part in our own hands. Let us however go with the guaranteed assurance that our international partners are within reach, to lend a hand as we strive to perfect our electioneering system,” he told the senators.

The presidential hopeful intimated that even as Liberia relies on such backing, the country must move to prove to them that Liberians are capable and mature enough to handle elections with national integrity and pride.

Adding his voice to the concerns raised by the Vice President, Senate President Pro-Tempore ArmahJallah urged Liberians to help maintain the abiding peace and security the country continue to yearn for with brotherly oneness so that Liberia will never again degenerate into a path of war, but rather forward march onward to greater peace, stability and prosperity for all regardless of one’s origin, creed, religious affiliation and political persuasion.

He called on his colleagues to remain committed to keeping the senate reconciled and by extension, the country. “I therefore promise to preside over a body in which each senator will feel a part of the whole, a senate in which our differences wouldn’t put us apart, but that we will recognize that what binds us together is stronger and greater than what divides us”, he vowed.

Jallah said the senate will remain engaged with the executive and judicial branches of government to ensure that checks and balances enshrined in the Constitution of Liberia are kept, and will never ever compromise its integrity nor lend support to anything that will be a semblance of public ridicule to any member of that august body.

By E. J. Nathaniel Daygbor-Editing by Jonathan Browne