On the second-last day of the campaigns on Saturday December 23, 2017, Liberia’s biggest opposition political party has assured the citizens of a new beginning once they ascend to power.
While addressing thousands of partisans and supporters from the Coalition for Democratic Change (CDC) and other collaborating parties, all attired in their respective party paraphernalia at the Samuel K. Doe Sports Complex in Paynesville, outside Monrovia, the flag bearer Senator George Weah said Tuesday’s polls presents Liberians an opportunity to change their lives, if only they decided to vote him as the next President.
“Fellow Liberians Tuesday would be the day that you Liberians would decide whether you want to move forward or remain backward. Tuesday would be the day when you’ll decide whether your young brothers and sisters [would continue] moving around in the streets asking people to give them WAEC fees; Tuesday would be a day that you would make a decision for students from university, from high school will move from office to office-to-ask for school fees. Tuesday would be the day that you’ll choose for your family to have food or not to have food,” Weah said.
The soccer icon-turned politician George Weah is battling the runoff election on Tuesday December 26 against ruling Unity Party’s Joseph N. Boakai.
Weah told supporters that a CDC-led government would invest in the improvement of agriculture as its means of creating jobs and boosting the economy.
He also promised to see to it that children of all walks of life get access to free education.
“This is reality, we want you to go to hospital free if you don’t have funds because it’s your right. We’re not going to tell you things that we know that cannot do. The coalition that I’m in is a coalition that would work for you,” he asserted.
He also criticized the ruling party of making elaborate promises yet they were in leadership for 10 years but are yet to make any remarkable achievement.
During the October 10 election, George Weah led with 38.4% of the total votes while Vice President Boakai trailed with 28.8%. He had topped 11 of Liberia’s 15 counties while his main contender, Boakai, topped only one.
The Supreme Court had halted election preparations while it examined a complaint by the candidate of Liberty Party, Charles Brumskine, who placed third in the first round.
Both the Weah and Boakai camps have formed coalitions with other candidates who missed out of the runoff election – an indication that reconciliation among the political class has quickly taken shape.
The vote is meant to mark Liberia’s first democratic transition of power since 1944.
Liberia is Africa’s oldest modern republic founded by freed U.S. slaves in 1847. But its last democratic power transfer, defined as a peaceful handover at the end of a full term, was in 1943.
The presidential poll is more than a test of the country’s democratic credentials. It also suggests that a vibrant political scene is emerging in a country that was once notorious for rebel conflicts and protracted civil war.
