Monrovia – Cllr. Muana Ville, Hearing Officer of the National Elections Commission (NEC), has denied and dismissed complaints of fraud and irregularities in the October 10, 2017 elections filed by the Liberty Party first complainant and the Unity Party, interveners.
Report by Henry Karmo, [email protected]
Cllr. Ville went ahead to mandate NEC to take necessary steps to correct all what they admitted to as difficulties and challenges before any future elections.
The NEC Hearing Officer in his ruling said, the first complainant and intervener complainant failed to prove allegations of fraud that warrant the re-run of the October 10, 2017 elections.
The ruling to many is not a surprise as Cllr. Ville is an employee of the Commission, which at this point of the legal challenge, is the umpire and player versus the two parties.
“In view of all I have said, the National Elections Commission is mandated to take necessary steps to correct all what they admitted to as difficulties before any future elections.”
“The first complainant and interveners have failed to prove allegations of fraud that warrant the re-run of the October 10, 2017 elections,” Ville said.
In keeping with the law the first complainant and interveners have the right to seek appeal to the Board of Commissioners of NEC and if ruling from that body is not satisfactory, the complainants can further appeal to the Supreme Court.
Hearing Officer Ville: “On the day of election, voters arrived at almost all of the polling places before queue controllers and arranged their own queues, making it difficult to redirect to their proper roll.
The defendants testified to difficulties that impeded the timely opening of polls; some due to the overflowing of rivers where polling staffs had to carry materials in canoes and on their heads in long distances.”
“The hearing officer is not convinced that these challenges alluded to by the defendants during the hearing of the complaint amount to fraud.”
“Fraud include the intentional employment of tricks, deception and actions intended to cheat the election will not be reverted base on irregularities except the irregularities affect the results of the election,” the hearing officer further said.
The runoff election has been stalled due to suspicion of electoral fraud and irregularities on a mass scale that probably affected the outcome of the October 10th Presidential and Legislative Elections.
The opposition Liberty Party took the lead in challenging the results with the National Elections Commission.
The party claimed to have overwhelming pieces of evidence to back their claims.
Surprisingly, they were later joined by the ruling Unity Party that was already poised to contest the runoff with its long and tall standing rival, the Coalition for Democratic Change, led by soccer legend, Senator George Manneh Weah.