EVERY SIX YEARS, A PRESIDENTIAL candidate gazes out over a vast crowd and convinces themselves the Executive Mansion is there for the taking.
THEY ARE AT EVERY POLITICAL rally shouting ‘Hosanna in the highest’ in scenes reminiscent of the reception Jesus was given when he entered Jerusalem on a donkey.
THEIR LOYALTY SEEMS MURKY. They would don your political T. shirt, show up in their numbers at your really and bamboozled you that they are really for you. But are they?
WELCOME TO 2017. The venue is Liberia. The main cast are the politicians who want to be President of Liberia. However, it’s a two way street. With nearly 85% of the population unemployed, it signals their desperation.
MANY HAVE REALIZED THAT they have been failed by those who elected them. Laws are not passed in their interest but the one who pays the piper. Justice is for the highest bidder.
NOW IT IS ALL A GAME of the crowd as ALP’s Benoni Urey launches today and UP’s Joseph Boakai wakes up tomorrow.
“I THINK THIS IS THE LARGEST crowd Liberia will ever see. It’s going to be a Tsunami. Even now, the requests for T-Shirts, we can’t cope with them. This city is going to be locked down completely,” Mr. Boakai said in an interview Thursday.”
“THE LIBERIAN PEOPLE will see an organized political party; they will see a mature political party; they will see numbers. We are not going to block the streets and pay people to come to the rally; we’re going to make people intoxicated, running around here with things tied to their heads.”
BUT IS THAT SO? DURING THE 2011 ELECTIONS, Rev. Kennedy Sandy of the Liberia Transformation Party pulled some of the massive crowds in every nook and cranny of the country. However, it did not translate into votes on elections day. According the NEC, he garnered 13,612 votes or 1.1% of the total valid votes.
COME WHAT MAY HOWEVER, many political observers see a growing perception of crowd politics that is making this year’s election difficult to gauge and predict. Multiple polls conducted so far suggest that more than forty percent of voters are undecided, making the ongoing competitive game of numbers a somewhat complicate measuring guide to who has the edge.
WHAT MANY AGREE ON HOWEVER, is that these elections are competitive and will more than likely head to a run-off. Politicians on both sides however have found in recent elections that numbers can be deceiving. Candidates that have fallen prey to crowd politics in the past may take cue before relying solely on how much numbers they are able to draw and how much psychological muscle they are able to pull.