A stalwart of the National Patriotic Party (NPP), Bomi County Sen. Sando Johnson says he is seriously lobbying with his colleagues in the Legislature for NPP’s possible withdrawal from the ruling Coalition for Democratic Change (CDC).
The CDC is a conglomeration of three political parties including imprisoned former President Charles Ghankay Taylor’s NPP, President George Manneh Weah’s Congress for Democratic Change (CDC) and former House Speaker J. Alex Tyler’s Liberian People Democratic Party (LPDP) which won the 2017 presidential election.
Ex-president Taylor’s estranged wife, now President Weah’s Vice President Madam Jewel Howard – Taylor has been heading the NPP up to the time it formed alliances with the CDC for the 2017 polls.
But addressing reporters on 13 August at his Capitol Building office, Sen. Johnson complained that from the day President Weah was elected, the coalition between the CDC and the NPP has allegedly ceased to exist.
Johnson thinks the way forward is for the NPP to start thinking about forming a coalition with another political party to avoid the CDC destroying the former ruling NPP which he says has a vision and mission to implement.
Sen. Johnson asserts that the NPP can no longer continue to be with the CDC as it (CDC) allegedly continues to violate the rights of the opposition.He notes that the country under President Weah is returning to the ugly past.
Sen. Johnson’s comments come in the wake of a fresh attack against supporters of opposition representative candidate Ms. Telia Urey by people believed to be supporters of the ruling CDC outside the National Elections Commission (NEC) headquarters in Sinkor.
Ms. Urey who leads CDC’s candidate in the Montserrado County District #15 by – election is before the NEC to hear its findings into her complaint of alleged irregularities in the elections at numerous polling places that favor Mr. Kamara.
[bsa_pro_ad_space id=1]
According to Sen. Johnson, he expected that upon his election, President Weah could sit around the table with the two other political parties that made up the coalition government to discuss the formation of the government, saying it was not the case.He accuses President Weah of supporting the violent action of CDC supporters due to his recent campaign statement made against the Ureys during the senatorial and representative by-election.
President Weah had vowed that the Ureys and now Montserrado County Sen. Abraham Darius Dillon could not win elections here.
But Johnson admonishes the president to exercise his political will as head of the executive branch of government to avoid leading the country to slip into the dark days where the peace and security of the nation were left in ruins.
The Bomi County lawmaker furthers that he is worried about the survival of the NPP which the CDC allegedly wants to destroy.
He laments that the CDC has already marginalized the NPP by its actions and decisions.
Asked if he was equally worried about seats given to the NPP in the Weah led – government, Sen. Johnson explains that the situation with the CDC is not about seats, but rather the survival of the party that has thousands of followers across Liberia.He concludes that if the NPP withdraws from the CDC, partisans of the NPP who wish to stay with the CDC can do so without any constraints.By Emmanuel Mondaye–Edited by Winston W. Parley
