River Gee County Senator Conmany B. Wesseh is still digesting his sweeping defeat on Tuesday night, September 08, 2020 from the primary of the former governing Unity Party (UP) that saw him disappeared from the party headquarters in Congo Town outside Monrovia even before the poll results were announced.
A party stalwart and progressive 70s, Sen. Wesseh terribly lost the primary to business tycoon-turned politician Amin Modad for the national chairmanship by a whopping 08 to 34 votes.
The renowned Liberian politician, activist, diplomat and commentator has been in the corridor of students’ and national politics for decades, but his defeat Tuesday was appalling to supporters, sympathizers, followers and admirers, including the Movement for Justice in Africa or MOJA, a consciousness-awakening group that he still holds loyalty to.
The former ruling Unity Party Tuesday this week elected new corps of officers, days after violent clashes marred the opposition’s primary in Nimba County. The UP is a constituent member of the four Collaborating Political Parties (CPP) that participated in that primary.
The NewDawn has been sampling partisans’ reaction to the unexpected defeat of the veteran politician lost with some pointing it to his loyalty to former President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.
Several UP partisans during the primary were openly heard remarking that Wesseh’s days of running the party ended along with the departure of the Sirleaf administration in 2018. They said the UP, under its current political leader, former Vice President Joseph Nyumah Boakai prefers to work with new faces in charting his own course void of perceived influences.
According to them, bringing back onboard Sen. Wesseh especially, at the level of the national chairmanship could amount to having the former standard bearer Ellen Johnson Sirleaf pulling strings and maintaining her shadow over the party.
They said political leader Boakai is passionate about and focused on building a new team totally, bringing onboard young folks with lot of energies to work with parties within the Collaborating Political Parties to face the governing Coalition for Democratic Change in the next elections.
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Chairman-elect Amin Modad, who comes with huge financial influence, is now darling boy of Boakai. UP partisans believe strongly that his presiding over the chairmanship will help in redeeming the party’s current struggling financial status.
Modad replaces embattled chairman Wilmot Paye, who still has a case pending at the Supreme Court over his controversial dismissal. Other officers elected at the primary were Madam Debah Varpilah, as senior national vice chairperson and Mr. Mohammed Ali, as secretary general.
Both Madam Varpilah and Ali are from the same county. It remains to be seen whether their elections will stand or one may have to give way for the other, simply because the UP constitution forbids two higher ranking officials from the same county.
By E. J. Nathaniel Daygbor–Editing by Jonathan Browne
