Monrovia – As part of its strategies to maintain state power, the national youth congress of the ruling Unity Party over the weekend conducted a one day youth retreat to develop strategies for the pending presidential runoff election slated for December 26, under the theme: “ Preparing For Victory”.
Report by Augustine T. Tweh – [email protected]
The one-day mini retreat took place at the national headquarters of the party in Congo Town.
Curtis Dorley, national youth chairman of the Unity Party, said the retreat brought together youth leaders of the 15 counties to strategize and discuss the future of the party in the upcoming presidential runoff.
“From lessons learnt from the first round of the elections we thought it was very important to invite our county youth leaders to discuss about the Unity Party future especially our performance when it comes to the runoff election.”
“So, today we are here at this one day mini retreat to prepare for the final round of the runoff election,” he said.
He added that the gathering was to inspire, motivate and keep the young partisans engage in the political process of the party by providing them the adequate skills and tools.
“Today we have various speakers who came to inspire the young people, motivate them, keep them engage and then show them additional tools they can use in enhancing their work when it comes to campaigning, grassroots campaigning.”
“What it takes to politics among young people, and who are their target groups,” Curtis said.
According to him, he prefers a UP continuity in diversity rather than elusive change despite the challenges, arguing that the UP has the best platform to govern the country.
“I tell people I prefer the continuity of the Unity Party in diversity rather than elusive change that people talk about from the other side because other people don’t have the platform that we have,” he averred.
“We were victimized, we were cheated, were affected by the fraud and irregularities but we thought to remain resolute and go to the court, being committed and being respectful to the rule of law,” he said.
At the same time, Cryton Duncan, the party’s chairman for election, emphasized the need for political institutions to empower young people in Liberia’s body politics.
“In every society it is the young people that are the bed rock in your success as it relates to politics.”
“The young people are the defining factor in every democracy but we as political institutions do not give them time and the chance to actually give in and be able to portray who they actually are,” he said.
And so we need to begin to change this attitude to give the young people the chance to be able to meet up to the task in our body politics,” Duncan said.
George Garteh, a senior partisan, said in the party needs to take an all hands-on-desk approach in reaching out to its partisans and eligible voters across the country if they should be victorious in the runoff.
“Some people say they are the custodian but for me it cuts across, it’s all of us responsibility,” he said.
“If you look at our country today many of the voters we have are all from the grassroots, in grassroots politics people believe in visibility, what they see easily attract them especially the picture of the Party standard bearer,” he said.