MONROVIA – The Board of Commissioners of the National Elections Commission has upheld its Hearing Officer’s ruling, affirming that the tenures of Chairman James Biney and other elected officers of the National Patriotic Party (NPP) have expired.
On November 30, 2020, several aggrieved partisans of the NPO filed a complaint with the National Elections Commission that the tenures of Chairman James P. Biney and all of those elected at the NPP’s February 2016 convention had expired and, as such, were without authority to steer the affairs of the NPP.
The NEC Hearing Office conducted an investigation and rendered a ruling in favor of the complainants, to which Biney and others excepted and took appeal before the Board of Commissioners.
Following a review of the matter by the Board of Commissioners, the NEC, on Friday, May 6, 2022, announced the following as its final determination of the case:
That with the tenures of Chairman James P. Biney and other partisans elected at the NPP’s February 16 convention either to serve for four or six years having expired, the said partisans (Biney and others) are without authority to steer the affairs of the NPP, and that an interim Convention Coordinating Committee, comprising seven persons, be set up to take the party to its 7th Biennial Convention where the outgoing Biney leadership shall make a report of its stewardship.
The NEC BOC ruling also states that within five days of the date of this ruling, the two sides (complainants and the Biney leadership) shall each designate and submit to the Political Affairs Section of the NEC, the names of three persons to serve on the said interim Convention Coordinating Committee, and that the chairperson of the interim Convention Coordinating Committee to be agreed upon by the two sides shall not be any of the named individuals in the case.
The NEC BOC further maintainined that in the event that the complainants and the outgoing Biney leadership cannot agree on a person to serve as chairperson of the interim Convention Coordinating Committee, the Political Affairs Section of the NEC will submit a list of three eminent Liberians from which the two sides will agree on one person to serve as chairperson, and that after the said submission of the list by NEC, the two parties cannot still agree on a chairperson, the NEC will designate a neutral person, association, or group to take the NPP to its 7th Biennial Convention.