The 2029 Elections are Still Three Years Away, But The Race Has Already Begun

AT THE WEEKEND, President Joseph Nyuma Boakai stood before Liberians in the United States, turned a question about a second term back to the crowd, and smiled: “I am still entitled to one term.” On the same Sunday in Monrovia, five opposition parties signed a pact to hold his government accountable and work together toward 2029. In the ruling camp, the Vice President and others are weighing their own futures. Across the country, party structures are waking up, alliances are shifting, and loyalties are being tested.

NONE OF THIS is unusual. Ambition is part of democracy. Wanting to lead your country is no sin. What matters is how that ambition is pursued, and what it is pursued for.

SO, THIS NEWSPAPER has one appeal to every man and woman who plans to ask Liberians for their vote in 2029: put Liberia first.

WE SAY THIS because we have seen what happens when politicians put themselves first.

LIBERIA DID NOT fall into chaos by accident. The slide began long before the first gunshot. It began with politics built on grievance instead of vision, on “my people” against “your people,” on the belief that power was a prize to be seized and kept, not a trust to be earned and returned. Spite became strategy. Hatred became a mobilizing tool. Greed turned public office into private property. The 1980 coup, the war that followed in 1989, and the second war that dragged into 2003 were paid for by ordinary Liberians: an estimated quarter of a million dead, a generation of children handed guns instead of books, and families scattered across refugee camps and foreign cities, many of them in the very diaspora the President addressed on Sunday.

PEACE DID NOT come from the men who made war. Much of it came from ordinary people who refused to accept it. The market women and church and mosque women who sat in the sun at the fish market, dressed in white, demanding peace. The mothers who said enough. They reminded us that the country belongs to its people, not to those who would burn it to rule the ashes.

SINCE THEN, LIBERIA has built something precious. In 2017, power passed from one elected president to another for the first time in generations. In 2023, a sitting president lost by one of the narrowest margins in our history and conceded peacefully. Those were not small things. They were proof that Liberians can disagree fiercely and still remain one nation.

BUT PEACE IS not a permanent gift. It has to be protected, election after election. And the warning signs are always the same: the rumor spread on WhatsApp to inflame one county against another, the rally speech that attacks a rival’s tribe or religion instead of his record, the young people paid a few dollars to fight at a campaign ground, the promise of jobs and contracts that sounds more like loot-sharing than governance. In 2023, campaign clashes turned deadly in places. We cannot afford to treat that as normal.

WHAT LIBERIANS NEED in 2029 is a contest of ideas.

TELL US HOW you will bring down the price of rice and fuel. Tell us how you will put electricity in homes beyond Monrovia, pave the roads that cut off whole counties in the rainy season, pay teachers and nurses on time, and keep young people off the streets and away from drugs. Tell us how you will fight corruption, including when the accused is your own ally. Tell us how you will create jobs for a young population that is tired of waiting. Show us your plan, your numbers, and your record, and let the voters judge.

TO THOSE IN power: incumbency is not a license. State resources, security forces and public media belong to all Liberians, not to one party’s campaign. A government confident in its record should welcome scrutiny, not fear it.

TO THOSE IN opposition: accountability is not the same as agitation. Criticize hard, expose failures, offer alternatives. But do not tear down the house simply because you are not the one living in it.

TO EVERY CANDIDATE and party leader: control your supporters. Words spoken on a microphone travel far, and in Liberia they have a history of ending in blood. Condemn violence and hate speech loudly, including when it comes from your own side.

AND TO THE voters: demand more. Ask candidates what they will do, not only whom they hate. Refuse to be bought. Refuse to be divided. Your vote is the most powerful thing you own. Do not sell it for a bag of rice or a T-shirt.

LIBERIA HAS ALREADY paid too high a price for politics driven by spite, hatred and greed. We have walked that road. We know where it leads.

IN 2029, WHOEVER wins, let Liberia win first.