UP breaks up?

Just at the time Vice President Joseph N. Boakai appears to be enjoying the endorsement of popular support for his candidacy among a cross section of the Liberian population, the ruling establishment is beginning to show cracks in bits, as party officials resign their posts.

The latest Unity Party or UP official to tender in his resignation is Information Minister Hne Eugene Nagbe. Nagbe resigned his post as Secretary General of the party on Thursday August 3.

In his Letter of Resignation addressed to party Chairman Wilmot J. M. Paye, Nagbe hopes that with the supervision of the National Executive Committee under Paye’s leadership, he is of the conviction that the UP National Campaign Management Team can stir the party to victory, while he and others remain in the administration to hold the fort in supporting President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf as she climaxes her historic and exemplary leadership with a peaceful, fair, free and transparent democratic transition.

Nagbe’s resignation comes barely a week after former Senate Pro-tempore Gbezohngar Findley, announced his resignation from the party. Findley was among those short-listed to be vice presidential running mate to Vice President Boakai-that was after he organized Boakai’s  Though it is not clear whether his (Findley) resignation could be tied to his vice –presidential candidacy hopes being dashed, but Findley resigned weeks after Mr. Boakai announced House Speaker Emmanuel Nuguay as his vice running mate.

Information available to this paper indicates that there are several other UP officials who are considering resigning their posts to play a low profile in the Boakai Campaign team.
The latest resignations exposes the deep divide within the ruling party with unconfirmed reports suggesting that party officials believed to be closed to President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf are be shunned by those closed to former Chairman Varney Sherman.

If this speculation is anything to go by, then the divide between the President and Sherman’s factions is a revisit of the bad blood between the two senior party officials in 2005 when Cllr. Sherman then Presidential candidate of the Liberia’s Action Party or LAP threw several barbs at then candidate Sirleaf.

he current internal bickering within the UP also appears to confirm speculations that the last minute marriage of convenient between the parties in 2010, is seriously shaking and this feud could affect Boakai’s presidential ambition if not address with all urgency.

By Othello B. Garblah