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Politics News

LP calls for mass demonstration

The national youth wing of the opposition Liberty Party (LP) of Cllr. Charles Walker Brumskine is calling for mass protest here to challenge results of Tuesday’s Presidential and Representatives Elections, citing alleged irregularities.


Addressing reporters late Sunday, 15 October at a news conference at the party headquarters opposite the St. Joseph’s Catholic Hospital Junction in the Monrovia suburb of Old Road, the Chairman of the Gallant National Youth Wing of the Liberty Party Cephas M.D. Flanzamaton says the recent polls had series of irregularities.

“We in the Liberty Party have noticed several irregularities that characterized the process. Those irregularities have greatly affected the anticipated free, fair and transparent electoral process that we envisaged”, he complains. Flanzamaton continues that in an effort to demonstrate the party’s seriousness in rejecting results from the polls, the youth wing will this week begin an indiscriminate violence free protest in Monrovia and parts adjacent, specifically at the headquarters of the National Elections Commission on 9th Street, Sinkor.

The party complains of several irregularities, some of them already acknowledged by the NEC and wants the commission to halt the ongoing counting, tallying, and announcing of provisional results, pending thorough investigation. “In an effort to show our discontentment in the process, our party through Chairman Ben Sanvee and Standard Bearer Cllr. Charles W. Brumskine have called for a halt to the announcement of provisional results and a rerun of the elections, but those calls are being ignored by the deeply rooted incompetent Board of Commissioners at the National Election Commission”, Flanzamaton expresses.

He says the impending protest is to send a clear message from individuals of non-compromising posture, until their demands are met, saying “We will leave no stone unturned as we demand justice through all means possible.”  According to him, the Liberty Party and its members are not prepared to accept a result wherein the ballot papers were not counted before the commencement of voting, like the case of the VAMUCO Market Precinct in Vai Town, Bushrod Island, continuing, “We will not accept any result where the number of votes surpassed the number of registered voters at a polling place, like the case of the Putu High School in Grand Gedeh.”

“No reasonable person will accept an election result where a Presiding Officer of the National Election Commission in Nimba has been arrested for ballot stuffing”, Flanzamaton futher contends.
He stresses that the Liberian people deserve the right to free, fair and transparent elections, which must be presided over by competent and impartial commissioners, and not those commissioners at NEC who even struggle on figures.
In an earlier a news conference on Friday, 13 October LP Standard Bearer Cllr. Charles Walker Brumskine notes: “These elections were characterized by gross irregularities and fraud, which undermined the integrity of the elections and deprived thousands of Liberians of their constitutional right to vote. Based on our assessment of the evidence available, the results of this election are not valid.”

He says the party will be filling a comprehensive complaint with the National Elections Commission in coming days, outlining all of the incidents of alleged irregularities and fraud.

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Provisional poll results released by the NEC as of Sunday, `5 October from 5,151 of the 5,390 or 96.5 percent of the polling places put the Coalition for Democratic Change, which is a conglomeration of the Congress for Democratic Change, the National Patriotic Party and the Liberian People Democratic Party ahead with 572, 374 or 39.2 percent of the total votes cast, while the governing Unity Party has 427,544 or 29.1 percent of the total votes cast, followed by the Liberty Party of Cllr. Brumskine in third place with 144,353 or 9.8 percent of the total votes counted so far.

The CDC and the UP are poised for a runoff on November 7, 2017 to determine a decisive winner of the Presidency since none of the 20 candidates in the race were able to obtain 50 percent plus one of the total votes or an absolute majority to capture the first round of polling, as required by the Constitution of Liberia.

Cllr. Brumskine recounts that after voting ended at a certain polling place in Montserrado County, the ballot box was sealed, and the party representatives left the polling place, but unfortunately, for the presiding officer, a poll watcher returned to the polling place only to allegedly find the presiding office’s hand in the ballot box, having broken the seal.

“We have the number of the seal that was initially placed on the ballot box when the counting was done, and the number of the second seal that was placed on the ballot box, following the return of the poll watcher,” he claims.

Editing by Jonathan Browne

 

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