IPNEWS- The ruling Unity Party (UP) and any other political party that may be thinking that it is in second pole position to snatch the nation’s presidency in 2029, may now have to be looking over their shoulders as the Movement for Progressive Change (MPC) has decided not to sleep until the elections year before waking up.
Mr. Simeon Freeman, Political Leader of the MPC, appearing on Freedom Radio’s early morning show, Freedom Rise, on Monday, February 5, made it known to the world that he and his MPC are not waiting for the elections year before beginning to get to Liberians for their votes. So, they have now begun their very early march to the Presidency.
His disclosure comes barely 20 days into the new administration of President Joseph Nyuma Boakai, who is Liberia’s 26th President. Boakai, presently 80-years-old, might not run for reelection in 2029 but his party is definitely going to be on the ballot for the coveted seat.
So, Freeman made the disclosure when he was specifically asked how it feels being an opposition for more than a decade.
“It feels good; it means that we have not come to clearly understand yet how to communicate our message to the voters. It means that we need to learn more to get the voters to understand that the things we are saying work for them and Liberia; and ever time we have participated in the process, we have learned from it and it changes our approach. You can see that I am starting much much early,” he said.
Included among some of the things that he has started to do in his early march, is working with various auxiliaries, including setting up cells in many populated areas, like learning institutions, and working more with the young people.
“We are going to be engaging with communities a lot more; “We are going to be engaging with representative candidates a lot more; this was something we clearly overlooked,” he admitted.
He even added that though the MPC has good messages for the voting public, but they don’t communicate it better enough to sway the minds of the people toward him.
Freeman has now participated in three presidential elections and lost. But he’s not wavering; he is still very determined and has the hope that he is going to go down on the pages of Liberia’s history as one of its presidents.
He cited what he thinks is a challenge in the way to the Presidency and he termed it as “miscarriage of representation”. “Take this last elections for example: the name the people already knew was Joseph Boakai and they knew that he came second to George Weah; so, obviously, frustration with George Weah means let’s consider Boakai.”
According to him, this doesn’t mean that the other people in the race, including him, didn’t have good messages or better capacities, he added: “politics is the game of the name. So, if you make yourself much known earlier and the people know you then they see you as an alternative.”
He further argued that Liberia’s three-month official political campaigning period isn’t long enough for one to propagate one’s messages to the voting population.
“And, because you don’t have sufficient time, you could buy 5000 motorbikes, you could be giving them to criminals. They will take them and say we are going to campaign for you but will take them and use them for their personal issues.”
He further said the MPC is starting “much, much earlier” and will make sure to criss-cross the entire country earlier so that the MPC will be fully known nationally.
Among other things, and being who Simeon Freeman is when it comes to the national discourse, he didn’t again, as always, mince his words on the state of affairs under President Boakai.
As early this less than three weeks under this Administration, Freeman has began to point out their flaws.
