Looking at the PYJ-Urey marriage

In a 90 degree turnaround, Senator Prince Yormie Johnson of Nimba County tuned off his Congo-native rhetoric over the weekend and formed a political merger with businessman Benoni Urey to present a common front in the October 10th presidential and general elections.

Sen. Johnson’s Movement for Democracy and Reconstruction or MDR party and Mr. Urey’s All Liberian Party or ALP reportedly sealed a deal on Saturday, 22 April that would see both parties collaborating in their quest for the Presidency.

Mr. Urey by any characterization is a descendant of Americo-Liberians and an influential leader of the free Masons with huge investments in Liberia.But until last weekend’s conclusion of merger talks, Sen. Johnson had gone from county to county preaching divisive politics, calling on electorates to reject so-called ‘minority rule’ at the ballot box come October. Implicitly, he told voters in his native Nimba County and southeast Liberia that it is time for the ‘majority’ to take power here.

The man whose public speeches are marked by many contradictions, appeared on a live radio talk show recently and denounced in no uncertain terms the Coalition for Democratic Change or CDC for having on board criminally indicted former speaker Alex J. Tyler, arguing that the founder of the Liberian People Democratic Party or LPDP should first go and exonerate himself from all charges.

Paradoxically however, when confronted with the fact that his name is among several warring faction leaders and ex-generals listed in the Final Report of Truth and Reconciliation Commission for committing hideous atrocities and crimes against humanity, he defended that under Liberia’s Legal Jurisprudence, an accused is presumed innocent until proven guilty.

Lest we be misconstrued, the New Dawn wholeheartedly welcomes the merger between Sen. Johnson and Mr. Urey, which we strongly believe is towards tearing down self-proclaimed and perceived barricades to unite Liberians, a people of less than 5 million.

We challenge both leaders to abandon the rhetoric and cease this opportunity to unite the citizenry because if the ALP-MDR ticket were to win the Presidency in October, it would not only govern the so-called ‘majority’, but the entire 43,000 square miles of Liberia that includes those Sen. PYJ refers to as ‘minority’.

With barely six months and few days to elections, we encourage more political parties to enter merger or coalition so as to depopulate the playing field to enable voters to make sound decision on polling day by putting Liberia first.

The ALP-MDR ticket should erase the Congo-Native rhetoric and now begin to tell Liberians in clear terms how it’s going to provide better political and economic environment that would improve the standard of leaving in the country. We all know that no single administration or government can address all of the needs, but the citizenry craves to see significant impacts of a leadership in a giving period.