By Taisiah K. Merfee
IPNEWS-Monrovia: The Election Coordinating Committee (ECC) has challenged and charged the Judiciary branch of government, particularly the full bench of the Supreme Court of Liberia to cancel the October 10 Presidential and legislatives elections result if the procedure and laws are not followed.
Speaking at the Liberian National Bar Association, Celebration of “Law Day” ECC Chairperson Cllr. Oscar Bloh urged the full bench of the Supreme Court to cancel the election result if they notice any fraud and irregularities in the elections result.
He asked the full bench of the Supreme Court not to be deterred by the financial implications involved with the cancellation of the elections result, but the right things should be done.
“I hereby, challenge our judiciary, the foundation of our democracy, the peace that we seek rest in the hands of the Judiciary. As the Judiciary will be faced with numerous petitions, as it was in 2017, were facts are clear, and were sufficient evidences are shown, that electoral process are not filed or followed. We challenge the court that nothing wrong when another Elections results is thrown out.
“You should not be lost with the financial implications of the conduct of a re-election if the procedure are not followed. The outcomes are just dividing. I again challenge the court, that we have resources in this country. We must protect our democracy, we must protect our electoral process as laid down in the laws” ECC chairperson Cllr. Bloh urged.
The Liberian National Bar Association on Friday, May 5, 2023 joined the rest of the world in celebration of “Law Day“. The program which was held at the EJS Ministerial complex outside Monrovia brought together hundreds of lawyers including the Chief Justice of Liberia Sie-A-Nyene G. Yuoh and members of the diplomatic corps.
The program was celebrated under the theme: “Episode of Electoral Violence and Prospects for Constitutional Democracy in Liberia.”
Giving precedent cases in Africa, he named Ivory Coast, Malawi and Kenya as African countries that recently cancelled elections results and go for re-election because they noticed that procedures and laws were not followed.
He encouraged the Judiciary branch to not be upset with the financial implications
Cllr. Bloh appealed to the Supreme Court to exercise authority when the elections law are not followed and do away with the opinion that calling for a re-election is financially expensive.
“The foundation of our democracy is in the judiciary. We’ve seen best practice from across Africa beginning with Ivory Coast few years ago were the Supreme Court cancelled elections result. We also saw that in 2017 in Kenya were the Judiciary mustered the courage to cancel the elections result when the sitting President was challenged” he disclosed.
Mr. Bloh indicated that in 2019, folks in Malawi learned from the experience of Kenya, and cancelled their Election result because of procedural errors.
Meanwhile, Cllr. Bloh said that on October 10 Liberians will be going to the polls to elect new leadership for the country which should be the fourth consecutive national elections since the end of the civil war.
“And so what is new? The first is that these elections will be fully funded by the government of Liberia. And already we beginning to see that there are lapses the timely disbursement of financial resources to the National Election Commission to affect functionality of the NEC. Secondly, the moved from the normal voter registration system to the Biometric Voter Registration process (BVR) are the new process” Cllr. Bloh asserted.
He averred that citizens are complaining about the BVR process, about material malfunctioning, delayed in the registration process due to limited knowledge of staff to operating the system among others, something he urged the government to address in order to improve the quality of the country democracy.
Mr. explained that Liberians are complaining that if the BVR is properly managed the government will have protection to improve quality of the country democracy.
“What we are seeing from this system is new. It’s the formalization or normalization of the mass movement of voters around. This is unacceptable, and it’s an electoral offences that is against section 10.1 of the New Election Law but unfortunately the NEC and the Ministry of Justice has not acted openly in addressing and responding to the situation” he alleged.
Mr. Bloh pointed out that Liberians are also going to the elections with electoral Reforms Law that is binding on the previous law since there was amendment in 2014.
“There are new challenges and so we hope that the government will have enacted major provision to the current election law of Liberia. In going to this elections in an environment of polarized media, particularly Community radios that are own, operated and finance by politician both in and outside of government. This is a trigger for electoral violence because this is where inflammatory and hit speeches will be propagated across the country” he added.
According to him, every citizens is aware that the Liberia National Police is under resources both in Human capacity as well as finance and logistics capacity.
Cllr. Bloh urged that as politicians go into the campaign activities, the electoral process is going to heighten and there is a risk for electoral violence.
He called on political parties to refrain from the use of hate speeches, because the mobilization of the youth militancy that the country has witnessed of late was which had been institutionalized in almost all political parties is completely terrible.
“Electoral violence that we have seen across Africa, is a heighten point. The Election result are collated and announce. This is where political parties and independent candidate contest the credibility of the results. At that stage, political parties are encouraged to seek judicial review of any petition around the credibility of the election results” he concluded.
