Monrovia – Not only is Liberia’s Vice President Joseph Boakai promising a first round victory in next month’s presidential elections, he is also putting it all on the line this weekend, promising a tidal wave of support Liberia has never seen.
Report by Rodney D. Sieh, [email protected]
“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.
Benoni Urey, the standard bearer of the opposition All Liberian Party is also thinking big.
“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” – Joseph Boakai, Standard Bearer, Ruling Unity Party
In an interview this week, Mr. Urey said: “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.”
Crowd pulling is the big game in this year’s presidential race with virtually all the twenty political parties promising to win on the first ballot.
Despite the confidence, many see the crowded presidential race ending in a run-off as has the past two elections.
In the October 11, 2005, elections, a runoff election were needed to break the battle between George Weah, who won the first round and Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf who finished second.
“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” – Benoni Urey, Standard Bearer, All Liberian Party
The outcome was familiar, six years later when the two parties – UP and CDC again faced off in the run-off after finishing first and second in the first round.
The Sirleaf-Boakai ticket led the presidential field with 43.9% of the vote, followed by the Winston Tubman-George Weah ticket with 32.7%.
Tubman alleged that the first round had been rigged in Sirleaf’s favor and called on his supporters to boycott the run-off. The National Elections Commission declared Sirleaf the winner of the November 2011 run-off with 90.7% of the vote.
This year’s race is being compared to the 2005 in that there is no incumbent president seeking re-election.
Until this year, Weah’s Congress for Democratic Change, now Coalition for Democratic Change dominated the crowd pulling political game with the party’s ability to draw its supporters to the streets whenever a rally is called.
That has led the party to dub itself the largest political party in Liberia owing to its second-place finish in the last two elections and its ability to pull close to 30 percent both times.
The political campaign season has taken on a new dimension this year with each party looking to outnumber the other with rallies not just in Montserrado County but in the rural areas as well.
Last weekend, another opposition, the Liberty Party claimed that it had reached its attendance target of 200,000 at its campaign launch last Saturday, a number that is being dispute from the party’s main rivals.
In late August, the CDC projected that it would draw two million people on the streets and lock down the city although only 2.1 million people are registered to vote.
But in Monrovia this week, two parties with a lot to prove and a lot at stake will be hoping to make a statement regarding their strength.
Urey on the one hand appears to be picking up steam of late after an up and down start but while many say a good show could serve as a confidence booster for he and his supporters, taking a stage ahead of the ruling Unity Party could prove to be a hit or miss depending on how much of a show Boakai and his supporters are able to muster.
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 who 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.
Regardless of how this weekend ends, both Boakai and Urey are quite aware that they are in for more than just a campaign launch. What is clear is that the psychology of these elections is presenting a rather complicated dilemma for competing parties looking to lure voters into their corners – if only the moment.