MONROVIA – Whether President George Weah is involved or he’s being fooled by sycophants around him or perhaps has absolutely nothing to do with the wrangling within the National Patriotic Party (NPP), seasoned lawyer and women activist Cllr. Pearl Brown Bull has warned that ousting his Vice President would be detrimental to his presidency.
Report by Lennart Dodoo, [email protected]
Over the weekend, the NPP – a party founded and led by jailed ex-president Charles G. Taylor, at its convention voted to expel Vice President Jewel Howard Taylor, from the party. They further recommended to President Weah and the ruling Coalition for Democratic Change (CDC) to strip her off her governmental post.
Madam Taylor served as standard bearer of the party. She’s also the ex-wife of former President Taylor. The chairman of the party, John Gray, is also suffering similar fate.
Interestingly, the expulsion of the two executives was orchestrated by former chairman James Biney who was expelled in October this year by the grievance and ethics committee of the party.
Biney said the pair were expelled because they had gone against the party’s constitution and tried to bring division within the NPP and by extension the governing Coalition for Democratic Change (CDC).
“Any institution that does not respect its bylaw is bound to fail. We are more hopeful than three years ago. We are into power right now,” Biney, who and VP Taylor have been embroiled in a war of words over the leadership of the party, said.
The NPP is member of the tripartite arrangement along with the Congress for Democratic Change and the Liberia People Democratic Party that formed the Coalition for Democratic Change.
Many political pundits believe that the convention which was held in Bentol, Montserrado County, cannot be considered legal as it was organized under the leadership of an expelled chairman.
Could Weah Be Involved?
When Biney was expelled from the NPP in October, a statement from the party signaled possible interreference from President Weah or officials of his Congress for Democratic Change in the internal affairs of the NPP.
The NPP, in its press release at the time warned, “The national executive committee of the National Patriotic Party also calls on the Coalition for Democratic Change to respect its decision [expulsion of Biney] as an independent constituent political party within the Coalition that exercises its constitutional duty in the framework of the party’s by-laws and constitution, and will in no way accept any indirect or direct interference from the other two parties (CDC, LPDP), as doing so, will undermine the spirit and intent of the Coalition for Democratic Change as enshrined in the Coalition agreement,” the NPP cautioned in its release.
Strains Between Weah & Jewel
It has become very glaring that the President and the Vice President are not on good terms. At least those who have been following the development know this.
Shortly after the expulsion of Biney from the NPP, Biney in an exclusive interview with FrontPage Africa in November accused Vice President Taylor of masterminding his removal from the party because of her ‘expressed interest to be President’.
He alleged that the party was engulfed in crisis has an ambition to contest for the office of the presidency in 2023.
Biney told FPA: “This is the real issue, Mrs. Taylor invited me and told me she wants to contest the Presidency [in] 2023, and that she needs people to join me to remove the Party from the coalition and I said ‘Mrs. Taylor that will be the saddest mistake you will make because we have a lot of work to do so if that is what you are thinking about wait for 12 years’ and she said the Party is her husband’s party and if I cannot conform to her proposal I should leave the party.”
However, his allegation against the Vice President was quickly debunked by the leadership of the NPP. John Gray who was acting as chairman of the party termed Biney’s assertion as “ludicrous” and “diversionary”.
President Weah as the head of the ruling coalition is yet to comment on the what the unfolding within the NPP.
He has, however, from the view of pundits, been finding means of making the vice presidency uncomfortable for Madam Taylor.
Multiple sources within the Executive Mansion confirmed to FPA in late November that Pres. Weah refused to see Vice President Taylor when she had gone to inform him of her travel to Reykjavik, Iceland to participate in the 2018 Women Leaders Global Forum which runs from November 26 to 29.
The VP, according to sources, was kept waiting for nearly two hours before being told by the President’s Chief of Staff, Finda Bondoo that the President was too busy to see her. The VP reportedly left a file detailing her travels with the Chief of Staff and asked her to kindly relay the message to the President.
FPA was further informed that despite Vice President Taylor’s effort to duly inform the President of her travel, he called her while she was in Accra, Ghana claiming that he had no knowledge of her travel and that she would face consequences upon her return to the country.
That same week, President Weah submitted to the Legislature seeking to wrestle the vice president’s oversight of the lotteries and granting himself appointing powers to someone with a deciding vote, effectively leaving his vice president in the cold.
Since 1993 when the legislature first enacted the bill, the vice president has had oversight of the lotteries. In the past twelve years, former vice president Joseph Boakai had the deciding vote on the lotteries board.
This decision by the President has come under heavy public criticism.
Cllr. Bull: Jewel Was Used
Cllr. Bull is one of few astute Liberian women who openly supported President Weah’s presidency during the election campaign in 2017.
She told FrontPageAfrica that her support to the CDC at the time was in support for his preferment of a female candidate as his vice president. This, according to her, signaled the continuation of involving women in politics at the highest level in the country.
She cautioned that, “I call upon him not to let the people around him fool him. Those people who are disgruntle, don’t listen to them. It was the voice of God and the voice of the women that took him up there.”
She said those encouraging the ousting of the Vice President are doing so out of hatred, malice and only being mischievous.
Cllr. Bull said, “I’m also calling on the Vice President not to tender any resignation. The NPP used her to carry them where they are. If they put her down, they’re putting the women of Liberia down.”
According to Cllr. Bull who is also a constitutional lawyer with almost four decades of experience, it is not politically expedient for the President to make such a decision having promised 50 percent women participation in his government.
She added that Pres. Weah’s decision to select Madam Taylor is his vice president was in recognition of the role women have played in sustaining the peace in the country.
Cllr. Bull who prides herself as a veteran politician said, “We the women in the 11th hour rallied around him. For him to do this, this would be a political suicide not only to Liberian women, but to African women. And this is the week of activism when he went and declared himself, hell has no fury as a woman’s scorn.”
She warned that women will rise against the removal of vice president Taylor, noting, “He know the women the role they have played.”
According to her, making such a decision poses serious security threat to the state.
“It’s a national security threat because when we decide to go helter-skelter the security in this country would not be able to contain us. He must not forget, we have women in the police, we have women in the army. We have women in all the security sectors in this country,” she warned.