Monrovia – Of the top five candidates for Tuesday’s presidential poll not one has responded to a request by FrontPage Africa to release his medical records.
Report by Bettie K. Johnson Mbayo, [email protected]
The requests were sent to the campaigns of Cllr. Charles Brumskine (Liberty Party), Vice President Joseph Boakai (Unity Party), Senator George Weah (Coalition for Democratic Change), Alexander Cummings (Alternative National Congress) and businessman Benoni Urey (All Liberian Party) none has responded to repeated FPA probes stretching back to July.
The candidates all say they are in good health, but without evidence voters are forced to take their word all are in fit physical shape to lead for the six year term for which they are running.
Concerns have been raised for the health of several candidates. At age 72, Vice President Joseph Boakai’s health has been a constant focus.
At several events in recent months the UP standard bearer has appeared to sleep, something the candidate’s party has repeatedly denied.
If he were to stand for a second term he would be 78 when running, the same age as President Johnson Sirleaf as she steps down from office.
At age 67, Charles Brumskine is the second oldest candidate in the election. His is one year older than Johnson Sirleaf when she was first elected.
He would be 73 if he were to win and then run for a second term in 2023.
Candidates Cummings at 61 and Urey at 57 have had no reported health problems and appear, at least, to be in good physical health.
At age 51 the former international footballer George Weah may have been expected to jump at the chance to prove his medical health over his rivals.
He is the only candidate whose level of fitness has been witnessed by independent observers.
BBC reporter Umara Fofana reported watching the CDC standard bearer play a full 90 minutes of football last weekend thought Fofana witnessed none of the magic that saw Weah win FIFA Player of the Year in his prime.
“Of course it’s important,” said Dr. Selina Cooper who served as a physician at a local hospital – “If they don’t give them (their medical records).
There’s an immediate assumption that there’s something wrong.”
Cooper said the issue is more than a hypothetical one, pointing to health problems that affected the performance in office of John F. Kennedy, Franklin Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, former Presidents of the United States whose medical conditions were hidden from the public.
President Ronald Reagan was discovered to have suffered the early stages of the degenerative brain disease Alzheimer while in office.
There were concerns in hindsight about highly consequential decisions he made while suffering from the disease.
President Donald Trump’s health, particularly his mental health, has been a constant source of speculation because of his refusal all but a brief medical report.
In past Liberian presidential elections presidential candidates and their running mates have not been required to produce medical records and have produced them with various levels of thoroughness. Cooper would like to see it be more common in Liberian politics.
President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said that she exercised every morning prior to working hours in an interview with the BBC.
Weah has raised the issue of Boakai’s health on the campaign trail.
“He has a big health question. He sleeps a lot. Will he be healthy?” Weah said at his recent Bomi rally.
Boakai has maintained that he remains healthy as he approaches his 73rd birthday.
His son Joseph Boakai Jr, has dismissed concerns about his father’s apparent sleeping at major functions.
“He has big eye lids so when he sits the top of his eye covers the other, but seriously he can’t be sleeping,” he said.
Earlier last month, there were reports that Boakai fell off a chair while sitting with elders but no pictorial was shown of the incident.
Africa has long had the world’s oldest leaders many of whom have battled health problems while in office.
Nigeria has held its breath several times in the last year as President Muhammadu Buhari, 75, has spent weeks on end in the U.K. with an undisclosed health problem.
There are fears the clearly deteriorating health of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, 97, may derail the country’s 2018 elections.
Nigerian President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, the President of Nigeria, died at the age of 58 in 2011 from pericarditis in Nigeria.
He had been in office for only three years.
His election campaign was punctuated by his absence from the campaign trail, complete with reports of health-related complications.
After his election in April 2007, Yar’Adua’s health deteriorated quickly.
Michael Sata of Zambia who died at the age of 77 of an undisclosed illness in the United Kingdom in 2014.
After his election in 2011, rumors about his failing health spread across Zambia.
His continuous absence at major state functions raised concerns about his well-being, even though his spokesmen said he was in good health.
Also in 2012, John Atta Mills, the President of Ghana, died in his home country of a stroke and throat cancer at the age of 68.
He won the presidential election in 2008 and was in office for only three years.
The fourth leader to die in 2012 was Malam Bacai Sanha, the president of Guinea-Bissau.
He suffered from diabetes and died in Paris after four years as president at the age of 64.
Throughout his time in office, he suffered from several health complications and was continually in and out of the hospital.