Obediah Johnson, [email protected]
Robertsport, Grand Cape Mount County – Registered voters are now going to the polls to cast their votes for a new Senator in the Grand Cape Mount County Senatorial by-election.
The vacancy was created following the death of Senator Edward B. Dagoseh.
The late Senator died at the John F. Kennedy Memorial Hospital in Sinkor, Monrovia, reportedly of cancer.
Until his death, he was an Executive Committee Member of the former ruling Unity Party (UP).
Unfortunately, he was among the eight UP senators of the 30-member Senate, who were suspended by the party for their role played in the removal of former Associate Justice Kabineh Ja’neh.
“Since we started about an hour ago, only two persons have voted. We commenced at 8AM prompt; but the voters are not really coming. As for the candidates representatives-like you can see in this room, out of the seven candidates, only six representatives we have in here for them.”
A Presiding Officer assigned at one of the polling centers
The late Grand Cape Mount Senator formerly served as Deputy Minister at the Ministry of Youth and Sports; in a senior position at the Ministry of Finance before it was merged with the Ministry of Planning and Economics Affairs.
Seven (7) candidates, including two (2) females are contesting the by-election.
They include: Mathew Darblo of the Vision for Liberia Transformation (VOLT), Kula Fofana of the Coalition for Liberia’s Progress (CLP), Daoda Metzger, an independent candidate, Simeon Taylor of the Alternative National Congress (ANC), Dabah Varplah of the Unity Party, Victor Watson of the People’s Unification Party (PUP), and Sando Wayne of the United People’s Party (UPP).
Voting processes commenced on time at the Gbah Foboi Public School with Precinct Code: 12041, and the Konja Town Hall Code 120391.
The Gbah Foboi Public School voting center comprises of five (5) polling places, while the Konja Town Hall houses four (4) polling places.
Poll workers reported low turnout during the early start of the voting process, though the weather condition is favorable.
In some of the voting rooms, few poll workers sat reluctantly, while others busied themselves by playing with their mobile phones.
Representatives of candidates and observers from the Liberia Council of Churches (LCC), headed by Bishop Kortu Brown, were scene at the polling centers.
Officers of the Liberia National Police (LNP) were deployed at the two (2) precincts.
“Since we started about an hour ago, only two persons have voted. We commenced at 8AM prompt; but the voters are not really coming. As for the candidates representatives-like you can see in this room, out of the seven candidates, only six representatives we have in here for them,” a Presiding Officer assigned at one of the polling centers accentuated.
So far, there has been no report of electoral violence.
As one of the founding counties of Liberia, Grand Cape Mount County remains backward in terms of economic and infrastructural growth and development.
The county was established in 1856.
The winner of the senatorial by-election in Grand Cape Mount County will have a mammoth challenge of addressing the numerous constraints confronting residents of the county, ranging from lack of adequate healthcare delivery, access to safe drinking water, job opportunities, bad roads condition, among others.
Grand Cape Mount is a county in the northwestern portion of the West African nation of Liberia.
It is one of the 15 counties that constitute the first-level of administrative division in the nation, it has five districts.
Robertsport serves as the capital with the area of the county measuring 5,162 square kilometres (1,993 sq mi).
As of the 2008 Census, Grand Cape Mount had a population of 129,817, making it the eighth most populous county in Liberia.
The county is bordered by Gbarpolu County to the northeast and Bomi County to the southeast.
The northern part of Grand Cape Mount borders the nation of Sierra Leone, while to the west lies the Atlantic Ocean.
The name of the county comes from Cape du Mont, a French word meaning the Cape of the Mount.
In 1461, Pedro de Sintra, a Portuguese explorer charting the West Coast of Africa, saw the prominent feature of the cape and chose its name.