Monrovia – With exactly one year to the 2017 elections, when Liberians go to the polls to elect their next President andmember of the House of Representatives.
“Today marks exactly three hundred and sixty five days to 2017 general and Presidential elections,” National Election Commission Executive Director Lamin Lighe said.
With the hope by many Liberians that they will for the first time use a bio-metric registration but the Executive Director of NEC has revealed that there will be a change in the election timetable due to a change in the voter registration process.
“We have completed our election timeline, we will change our election timeline as the result of change in methodology of the voter registration reason beyond the control of the National Election Commission,” Lighe said.
Months back in Grand Bassa, NEC Executive Director said that the commission had resolved to use the bio-metric voter registration, but with the look of things the bio-metric voter registration process is now a dream.
“We have to revise our electoral timeline to accommodate using the optical mark recognition technology instead of the biometric,” Lighe added.
“This election is very crucial, we want to our best. The first way of voting was undermined by double registration, which was difficult to determine.”
The NEC Executive Director averred that with a bio-metric voter registration voters would not verify their registration manually.
“With a bio-metric registration, we want to have an electronic verifier. They will swap your voter card in the verifier and your picture will appear, all these innovation is to have a greater acceptance of the result,” Lighe said.
Political observers say that NEC’s failure to accomplish this new registration is tied to the government inability to fund the Commission’s new plan, and that new process could be ground for election confusion.
In spite of the change in timetable, Lighe said the Commission was preparing and putting things in place for smooth elections come 2017.
“Every electoral process begins with a legal framework,” Lighe said. Normally before you go about playing a football match, the rules are clear so that in the middle of the match you don’t bring new rules, which have the propensity to undermine the elections. We now have a revive election law; this was revived in 2014,” Lighe said, showcasing the law.
“We harmonize all the opinions of the Supreme Court regarding elections; we harmonize them so that it doesn’t conflict with the regulation. This is one of our major achievements,” he said.
Lighe recalled that resolving electoral disputes was one of the challenges during the 2014 election, adding that a better resolution mechanism had been put in place.
“We will be training our magistrates across the country; it is the magistrates who will first hear these cases, and because of the lack of training we had several issues concerning electoral disputes,” Lighe added.
NEC Executive Director averred that the election budget was slashed, adding that commission got US$20 million out of the 46 million United States dollars submitted.
“We also done our budget, the budget submitted to government is in the tone of US$46.8 million, we been having some discussion right now what we have the budget has been reduce, we see in the draft budget submitted by the legislature that they identified some US$20 million for election,” Lighe said.
“We also have commitment from our partner about a month ago the total commitment was about US$7 million, theirs is also a commitment of five million dollars from our partner, before the end of this week the first allotment will be made to the NEC, election preparation is like a preparation for war.”
Lighe added, the National Elections Commission was putting its house in order ahead of elections adding that budget and procurement plans have been submitted.
“The only logistic planning that is bigger than election is when you are going to war,” Lighe added
Lighe spoke at a one-day multi stakeholder’s dialogue on the 2017 electoral management organized by the National Youth Movement on Transparent Election (NAYMOTE).
The overall goal of the dialogue is to assess the level of preparedness of electoral stakeholders, identify critical challenges, gaps and progress, as well as, safeguard inclusive in the electoral management cycle for a peaceful transition.
The dialogue by NAYMOTE will featured two panel discussions will address participants on various issue relating to the preparedness of the electoral management body and electoral stakeholders to support the smooth conduct of the 2017 elections and peaceful transition of political power.
NAYMOTE Executive Director, Eddie Jarwolo said, “In the wake of the revised electoral law, the code of conduct, increased number of political parties, the creation of new voters’ registry, the proposed Affirmative Action Bill (21 additional seats), and issues regarding the threshold for voter registration, as well as the UNMIL, it is important to begin engaging key electoral stakeholders and election management body around their preparedness as we move closer to upcoming elections in order to adequately address the existing challenge and shorting comings and find a way forward to ensure a smooth democratic transition.”