Monrovia – The Liberty Party was flogged in the Foya District #1 Lofa County by-elections – a seat they have contested and won in the past two elections.
Report by Henry Karmo – [email protected]
Despite their previous outstanding performances in the past two general elections in that district, the party took 7th place in the just ended by-election which was won by Francis Sakila Nyumalin of the Union of Liberian Democrats (ULD).
He won by accumulating 3,149 votes (32.0%) compared to Liberty Party’s 410 votes which represented only 4.2% of valid votes cast.
Critics in and out of the Liberty Party are pointing fingers at Senator Steve Zargo who promised to use his position in the county and the Senate and ensured that that seat is retained for the party, but on the contrary that did not happen. Sen. Zargo has refuted such claims.
In an exclusive interview with FrontPage Africa last Thursday at the Capitol, Zargo said Lofa County is a unique with six local dialects.
“District one is exclusively Kissi where the Vice President comes from, the Defence Minister and Senator George Tengbeh and you know what that election meant to the UP and the Vice President, so to say I did not win the district for the LP makes me unpopular is an unfair statement.
A lot of factors came to play; inter-party factor, culture and traditional factors and by-elections are not planned.
“When Kparkar died, we spent a lot of time preparing his wake and burial, but how be it, that is now out; we need to put our house in order and get prepared for the October election.
The district is exclusively Kissi and this contestation was among the Kissi – my uncles per our tradition – and I am far away so to come to Foya and campaign against my uncles was an uphill task.”
He also mentioned the unpreparedness of the Liberty Party’s candidate as one of the many factors that led to the party’s defeat.
“Our candidate was not prepared to replace Eugene Fallah Kparka neither did we in the Liberty Party know that Kparkar would have died, but I assure you if it was Kparkar we were carrying for the third time he would have won.”
Zargo asked officials and members of the Liberty Party to accept the result and move on.
“Let’s accept it as it is and prepare for next election, but that shouldn’t be a yard stick to tell whether a lawmaker is strong or not.
The National Elections Commission last Thursday declared Nyumalin as winner of the by-election and formally informed the Legislature of his victory. Nyumalin has since been inducted into Plenary of the House of Representatives.
In his induction comments he promised to work with members of the county’s caucus to reunite the people of the district, and the county at large, especially where he is poised to go for re-election in October 2017.
“We have come to join you knowing that the challenges faced by this august body are enormous and require our collective efforts to mitigate same.”
“We have come to join knowing that legislative work is a team work.”