-As Honest Ballot Discloses only 75 Voters of 899 Cast Ballots
Honest Ballot, the entity provided the voting machines for the Union of Liberian Associations in the Americas’ (ULAA) March 2nd, 2024 national election, has reported that only 75 persons voted in the half-baked election, which should have seen at least 899 registered voters participating. This is just 8 percent of the total number of registered voters; the voting process lasted eight hours.
“Honest Ballot confirms seven[ty]-five (75) votes cast for the election of the ULAA 49th General Assembly on two Electronic Voting Machines on Saturday, March 2, 2024,” Linda Gibbs, President of Honest Ballot, who signed the report, said. The report is yet to be officially released to all of ULAA membership/public as it is the legal counsels of both conflicting parties in the legal suit, who are mandated to release the results, based on Judge Barry C. Dozor of the Delaware County Court of Common Pleas, Pennsylvania, order.
There are reports that Honest Ballot presented their record to the legal representatives— Nixon T. Kannah, Esquire and Charles K. Sunwabe, Jr., MA, Attorney— since March 5th, 2024, and they are yet to officially release the result because of the lack of democratic nature of the process and disenfranchisement of the overwhelming majority of the ULAA dedicated and registered membership, who were denied voting for the men and women, who are supposed to lead them for the next two years. The results show that those who won, have less than 10 percent mandate of ULAA majority membership.
On March 2nd, 2024, Mr. Nixon Kannah, legal representation of the other conflicting party in ULAA elections matter, spearheaded the election without the inputs from ULAA Elections Commission. The election went ahead on that day, at the Victory Harvest International, 59th Street, Philadelphia, PA, USA. Since that day, some ULAA membership have been wondering why the court is yet to release the results of the half-baked elections that some of the very important players boycotted over credibility issue apparently because of the fishy things that preceded the process.
Before the elections day, the campaign team for ULAA’s incumbent President and also the other party in the lawsuit had backed off from participating in the March 2nd process on grounds that it was never going to be free, fair and transparent. Team Kamara of ULAA President Shiwoh Kamara had also called for the full implementation of the court order as was instructed by Judge Dozor.
It is clear that all the 17-count mandates from Judge Dozor were not satisfactorily implemented ahead of the election; thus the boycott of the process by most of ULAA’s membership.
Two days before the election day, the ULAA Elections Commission, led by Bartee C. Togba, in a press release issued on February 29, 2024, announced that it was backing off from spearheading the process.
“The Elections Commission acknowledges that general election for the Union’s national officers, is scheduled on Saturday, March 2, 2024, pursuant [to] court order resulting from the ongoing litigation in the Union. The Commission also recognizes that counsels were ordered as parliamentarians to work with the Elections Commission to conduct these elections. Meanwhile, the Commission wishes to clarify that despite these orders by the court, counsels have not meaningfully worked with the Commission to ensure that free, fair, and credible elections are held on the scheduled date. Additionally, there were no serious or substantial consideration accorded the requirements necessary to ensure popular and inclusive participation of the Union’s member organizations and chapters.
“In view of all of the above and sundry, the Commission wishes to inform all candidates, representatives of candidates, chapters of the Union, and heads of chapters, member organizations, and the public that the Commission will not participate in these elections. The Commission’s position has been expressed to the court through counsels/parliamentarians.”
Like Team Kamara, on March 1, 2024, the Executive Council of the Liberian Community Association of the Washington DC Metropolitan Area (LCA-DC) pulled out of participating in the process, too.
LCA-DC President Wilma Redd, said, “The Council has been advised by LCA-DC ULAA Representatives, Ms. Monsio Seedee and Ms. Jackie Nah, that the LCA-DC Chapter should not participate in the ULAA elections tomorrow, Saturday, March 2, 2024, because the process will not result in free and fair elections”. They explained that the ULAA Board of Directors and Executive Committee are in court over the 2023 ULAA elections that were canceled because of a physical threat to delegates and executives. Even though the judge mandated that elections be held on March 2, 2024, however, LCA-DC did not receive any timely and official communication about how the elections would be conducted.
“There were pieces of information circulating on WhatsApp and iMessage from different sources about candidates running in the ULAA elections, the ULAA Elections Commission, and from other individuals, which indicated that the elections would be held on Saturday, March 2nd, in Philadelphia.”
Like LCA-DC, ULAA’s Iowa and Connecticut member chapters, too, didn’t take part in the process because they didn’t trust the credibility of the outcome.
One thing that made these three very important member chapters to boycott the elections is that while following the court order, they noticed that the process was being single handedly managed by the legal counsel of the opposing party to incumbent President Shiwoh Kamara.
In the meantime, President Kamara has disclosed that he will setup a robust 2024 Convention Committee from a cross section of ULAA Member chapters to begin immediate preparations for General Assemby-50 and ULAA 50th Anniversary, which is slated for September 2024.
