By Winston W. Parley
Dethroned People’s Liberation Party (PLP) chairman Wilmot Paye says the party’s announcement of his expulsion Monday, 20 September 2021 is a late response to his formal written resignation both as acting chairman and member of PLP on 17 September 2021.
“What they are doing is just a late response to what we did last week, because, on the 17th which was Friday, we submitted, I officially distanced myself from the party,” said Mr. Paye in a phone interview with the NewDawn newspaper Tuesday, 21 September 2021.
“And I wrote the commission, uh, the Elections Commission, withdrawing my name, my signature, my everything from there as both acting national chairman and member of the party and I copied them,” he added. Mr. Paye said he thinks the PLP is just finding a way to respond to his action.
In announcing Paye’s expulsion on Monday, PLP said the former acting chairman and few others were removed from various leadership positions within the party for multiple reasons ranging from the alleged fraud, acts of undermining, and poor performances and unilaterally violating the constitutional rights of other members of the party.
Paye’s exit from the PLP after his short stay was in less than two years, the second damage of a political marriage with a party he had been chairing.
Prior to joining PLP, Paye was similarly expelled from the former ruling Unity Party (UP) which he chaired for years during former President Ellen Johnson – Sirleaf’s administration up to the time of his removal in early 2020 that prompted him to sue UP in February 2020, seeking declaratory judgment for his reinstatement.
He lost the court case and failed to be reinstated as a member or official of UP before subsequently taking up membership and leadership roles with his newly established PLP which seems to now become his apparent new political foe in town.
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However in addition to the phone interview, Mr. Paye shared with this paper through a WhatsApp message, a letter dated 17 September 2021 and addressed to Madam Davietta Brown – Lansanah, Chairperson of the National Elections Commission (NEC) through which he announced to the commission his withdrawal from PLP’s interim leadership and membership.
Contained in Paye’s letter is an alert for NEC to be mindful of tendencies that are inimical to its objectives, citing a growing concern he and his colleagues had expressed about alleged premature campaigning by PLP Vision Bearer Dr. Daniel E. Cassell and the wrongful display of his photos without due regard for the National Election Law.
In that letter, Paye states that its primary purpose is to inform the NEC about his decision to completely distance himself from the PLP both as acting interim chair and member, respectively, effective 17 September.
He informed the commission that he and his colleagues were concerned about what looked like violations of the Election Law, and they did their utmost to advise against possible violations, but their counsel was ignored.
“Accordingly, I herewith withdraw my name, phone numbers and email details which were submitted to the Commission for contact and other purposes from the Official Contact List, WhatsApp Chatroom or Directory of Political Parties,” Paye wrote the NEC.
Through its General Policy Commission (GPC), the PLP on Monday said it officially expelled Mr. Paye, Mr. Henry Sackie, Kansualism Kansuah, Carlos Edison Tingban, Peddi Ross, and Reuben Washington for similar reasons for allegedly violating the norms, code of values, and ethics of the party.
PLP said in a communication addressed to Mr.Paye under the signature of its Acting National Organizing Chairman Mr. Tapple E. Doe, it informed the dethroned acting PLP national chairman that since his removal, he continued to misrepresent himself in the public as chairman of the party.
The party claimed that Mr. Paye and the others have been engaged in fabricating stories, which have no iota of truth to besmear the party’s image and bring it to public ridicule.https://thenewdawnliberia.com/plp-finally-kicks-out-paye-others/
