Monrovia – Renowned Liberian economist and politician, Dr. Togba-Na Tipoteh, has written the Chairman of ECOWAS Authority cautioning the body of potential elections violence in Liberia, and therefore appealing for ECOWAS intervention by replacing the Chairman of the National Elections Commission and postponing the elections.
Report by Lennart Dodoo, [email protected]
“In this direction, it is crucial for ECOWAS to support this proposal for replacing the current chairman of the National Elections Commission of Liberia, setting up a Sovereign National Conference to postpone the holding of elections to give adequate time for the holding of fair elections.
The postponement of elections is necessary because there is not sufficient time between now and October 10 to make the adequate adjustments for the holding of fair elections”- Dr. Togba-Na Tipoteh, withdrawn Presidential candidate.
According to Dr. Tipoteh, the violence may erupt due to the failure by the National Elections Commission to release an updated voters roll up to date to the public.
“I make this appeal mainly because of the fact that there is no Voters Registration Roll and it is impossible to have fair elections without a Voters Registration Roll.
The National Elections Commission (NEC) of the Liberia has announced publicly that it has a Voters Registration Roll with 2.1 million registered voters.
However, this NEC Roll is generally flawed because the elections material and equipment used in the Voters Registration produced thousands of errors that rendered it impossible to attain any synchronization between the Roll and the Voters Registration Card,” Dr. Tipoteh explained in his complaint to ECOWAS.
Dr. Tipoteh, who in the letter, a copy of which is in the possession of FrontPageAfrica, reiterated by NEC Chairman Cllr. Jerome Korkoya is illegally handling the elections as he is a U.S. citizen.
To this, effect, Dr. Tipoteh said he has stepped out of the presidential race to provide substantive evidence on “the unfairness of the electoral process.”
He added, “Certainly, any sensible person would not participate in a process that he/she recognizes to be an unfair process.”
He recalled that Cllr. Korkoya had announced during a press conference about a month ago that any person with a NEC Voter Registration Card can vote in the October 10 elections.
Dr. Tipoeh: “In a constitutional correct move, the oldest NEC Commissioner, since 2004, in the person of Commissioner Jonathan Weedor, issued a public statement to the effect that the Voter Registration Roll is indispensible for the holding of election in Liberia because voter registration cards are manufactured illegally in Liberia and the in the absence of the synchronization between the roll and the cards such that one can observe his or her name and photo on the voter registration roll, there cannot be fair elections.”
Tipoteh observed that when the population of citizens with non-voting age is deducted from Liberia’s 4.6 million, it is impossible to have a voters registration roll of 2.1 million. He further noted that the NEC targeted 2.5 million people to register for the elections when the entire voting population is at most 2.3 million.
“As I continue to give highest priority to being informed by the objective conditions and aspirations of the masses of the Liberian people, over the past half a century, I have been correct in predicting the outcomes of all the major societally dismal situations in Liberia, such as the civil war,” he averred in his communication to ECOWAS.
“In this direction, it is crucial for ECOWAS to support this proposal for replacing the current chairman of the National Elections Commission of Liberia, setting up a Sovereign National Conference to postpone the holding of elections to give adequate time for the holding of fair elections.
The postponement of elections is necessary because there is not sufficient time between now and October 10 to make the adequate adjustments for the holding of fair elections,” he asserted.