Monrovia – An opposition group calling itself Sports Writers Association of Liberia Integrity team has accused the president of SWAL Roland Mulbah of infusing names of unqualified voters on the voters’ roll ahead of the media body election on Saturday, December 15, 2018.
Report by Jaheim T. Tumu [email protected]
The spokesperson of the group, Sally H. Gaye alleges that the current regime headed by Mr. Mulbah has a history of election irregularities.Report by Jaheim T. Tumu [email protected] The spokesperson of the group, Sally H. Gaye alleges that the current regime headed by Mr. Mulbah has a history of election irregularities.
“The past two elections of the Roland Mulbah regime have always been marred by electoral violence, something that we see creeping again in the ensuing 2018 SWAL elections.”
“The eleven names that are not members of SWAL, there are a foul played. Roland Mulbah’s leadership is intruding into the work of the membership committee,” Ms. Gaye said.
“It is the duty of the membership committee to come up with the membership but we were shocked when we saw the listing in Roland Mulbah’s hands handling it to the election commission. In that process there was a foul played; that is when the swapping of the eleven names happened,” Ms. Gaye accused.
Ms. Gaye said added that the eleven unqualified voters that obtained full membership status violates Article 2, section 2i of SWAL’s constitution.
Article 2, section 2i of the SWAL constitution states, “Full membership of the Sports Writers Association of Liberia (SWAL) shall be granted to Liberian journalists involved in sports writing, Television and have practiced for the period of three years with recognized accredited media institutions, employed or freelancing with electronic or print institutions.”
Ms. Gaye, however, wants the Election Committee and the Press Union of Liberia (PUL) to swiftly scrutinize and remove those individuals who names were fraudulently placed on the voters’ roll to have a smooth electoral process.
“These names never obtain nor have qualified for any of the SWAL membership as such they should be deleted from the Voters’ roll ahead of the elections,” Ms. Gaye warned.
The opposition group accused Mulbah’s leadership of denying some high profiled sports journalists including Momo Siryon, Danesius Marteh and Benjamin Gbarkpah of participating in the electoral process; something they termed as a witch hunt.
Ms. Gaye further stressed that the current leadership has failed to setup an ad- hoc congress committee and have refused to distribute congress documents 15 days prior to the elective congress as per constitution.
When contacted, Roland Mulbah refuted the allegation.
“At no time did I inferred with the workings of the membership committee; the 73 eligible voters were scrutinized by the committee and submitted to us and did not play a role in who qualifies for Full and Associate membership.”
“I served SWAL for years with a clean record how can people say I want to decide who become president, I have a candidate I support but will not change the result on Saturday anyone that the members vote will be the one to lead us for the next two years.” The tough talking outgoing SWAL president said.
