Monrovia – Nearly fifty percent of Liberian electorates remain largely undecided about who they want as their next President ahead of Presidential and legislative elections this October.
Polling data collected by the regional-based Ads Services & Marketic and commissioned by FrontPageAfrica has found that an overwhelming majority of the registered voters were either undecided or said they didn’t know.
Almost half of the registered voters (49%) selected this option (Chart 9). This suggests that the race is wide open, that Liberians are not yet convinced by the obvious aspirants, and are keeping their options open.
ADS Services & Marketic is a leading market and social research firm in West Africa.
They have operations in Guinea Conakry, Burkina Faso, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Niger and Sierra Leone. ADS use multi-dimensional research approaches and technology in addressing their client needs.
After 12 years at the helm, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf will step aside from the presidency in Liberia as citizen’s head to the polls on Thursday 10, October 2017.
Liberia’s current constitution allows the President to hold office for two seven-year terms.
This means that, at the end of President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf towards the end of this year, she will pave way for a new President. Further to that, voters will also have an opportunity to vote for the House of Representatives.
The findings are based on survey conducted from 10th July to 21st July 2017 covering a total of 1,224 respondents in all the counties.
The survey considered global sampling principles underlying random sample selection.
More than fifteen Presidential aspirants are expected to take part in the election in which it is hard to predict the outcome.
The uncertainty prompted Front Page Africa to commission a poll with the aim of understanding the following: Assessing the popularity and electability of current Presidential aspirants.
Assessing the popularity of different political parties / movements in Liberia; Assessing and evaluating the basis on which Liberian elect their President and Identify the ranking (on importance) of issues facing the electorate.
With less than two months remaining, it appears a wide-open field could give the more than a dozen candidates and political parties a lot to ponder heading into October. Statistics released by the National Elections Commission put the total number of registered voters at 2.1 million out of a population of a little over four million.
The gender make-up of those registered to vote is nearly even with 1,062,733 registered female voters to 1,120,950 male voters. Females make up 49 percent to males at 51 percent.
The pollsters concluded: “This is a representative sample of both rural and urban enumeration areas in Liberia.
The survey gathered opinions through a three-staged sampling approach, where a random sample was drawn from every stage: first 140 enumeration areas (EAs) were selected in proportion to the rural-urban split (the sample was drawn from the national master frame of EA’s in Liberia), then 10 households were selected in each of the EA, then one adult registered voter was selected randomly in each household. Out of the 1400 randomly selected respondents, 76 refused to participate in the survey.
In survey, respondents were asked the following question: If the Presidential elections were held today, who would you vote for?
The Presidential Aspirants who scored the highest in response to this question were George Weah (13%) of CDC, Joseph Boakai (11%) of UP and Alexander Cummings (10%) of ANC. The only other aspirants who scored more than 5% were Charles Brumskine (7%) of LP and Benoni Urey (5%) of ALP (Chat 9).
The results from the poll showing 49 percent of the voters undecided, makes it hard to predict the outcome of the election and who will become the next President.
The outcome means that the race is wide open and pollsters concluded that any of the aspirants in the race could win the presidency depending on the amount of efforts they will put in persuading the undecided voters.
As much as this was the case of the poll, the pollsters reported that there are three aspirants with more than 10 per cent of the voters supporting them.
“Nevertheless, this doesn’t mean that they could win the election but the three coming months will be key in determining who will become the next President.”
The poll found that the inability of the representatives to deliver to the expectations of the voters has resulted in a huge number of undecided voters who have lost hope in the ability of the political leadership to solve their problem.
It is for such reasons that 60% of the respondents in the poll said that promises made by their representatives weren’t delivered. Subsequently, more than half of Liberian voters said they would not vote back their representatives.
When pollsters asked Liberians about the qualities they want in their next President, 66 pe cent of the voters said that they want an honest and clean person as their next leader.
This is a clear indication that Liberians will be looking for such qualities in their next leader when they go to vote in October.
Honest & Clean
The poll further asked voters about the qualities people look for in their next President.
Almost 7 in 10 voters (66%) mentioned that they want an honest and clean person. The second and third most important qualities that voters want in their next President is hardworking and not corrupt.
On the other note, voters would like the next Liberian President to be educated and demonstrate strength but only a very small proportion of the voters (11%) considered political experience as an important quality in a leader.
Pollsters also presented voters with a list of attributes that people usually consider when voting for a President and asked them to select attributes which resonate with them. “The results indicate that qualities of a leader and promises made by the leader during the campaign were the main determinants of the voters’ choices.
However, fewer respondents picked aspirant’s tribe and the aspirant’s home county as attributes they would consider when choosing their next leader,” the poll found.
On questions about the legislative races, the poll found that more than half of Liberian voters won’t vote back their representatives in the upcoming elections.
“When registered voters were asked if they would vote their current representatives, More than half of them (55%) mentioned that they would not vote. We found a very strong correlation between voters who mentioned that their representatives didn’t implement their promises and those who won’t vote them back in the October election.”
Pollsters found that three in every 10 past general election voters mentioned that they recall the promises put forward by their representatives.
“When further asked to mention promises made by their representatives in most cases mentioned promises related to a construction project: build more classrooms (40%), building more hospitals (38%), constructing new roads (30%) and building water points (28%). The only non-construction promise, which was among the top 5 promises, was more jobs (25%).”
Only 2 in every 10 (19%) of the past election voter report that their representatives have implemented most of their promises, as shown in Chart 3. A further 21% said their representative had implemented some of their promises, while 60% said their representative had implemented none.”
The survey wanted to find out the single most serious problem facing Liberia, citizens across the country raised a wide range of issues.
The results showed that unemployment, education and health are the three highest ranked issues mentioned by the voters.
“The results indicate a huge gap between the main issue facing Liberia and the others, where 33% of the respondents mentioned that unemployment is the single most serious problem facing Liberia. “
“Chart 2 presents the distribution of unemployment over age groups. This shows that majority of the respondents who mentioned unemployment as the single most serious problem facing Liberians were the youth.”
Liberia is a country that is recovering from civil war and Ebola crises and is in the process of creating conducive business environment that would support economic growth and job creation.
As a result of the crises, majority of the population failed to acquire the required skills needed for securing jobs. The results of the poll are in line with the huge proportion of the youth population mentioning that unemployment is the single most serious problem facing Liberia today.
Liberia became the first black independent country in Africa where Americo-Liberians were able to establish a republic in 1847. Despite being ravaged by the civil wars but the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2003 paved the way for recovery from 14 years of civil wars that had destroyed democratic institutions.
However, the last two general elections (2005 & 2011) signaled a new era of democracy, which was reinforced by the senate elections held in 2014.