By Henry N. Kolenky in Maryland
MONROVIA : Hundreds of Citizens of Pleebo City yesterday, Wednesday, October 19, 2023, took to the streets and communities to celebrate the shocking defeat of their incumbent representative and Speaker of the House of Representatives, Bhofal Chambers moment the National Elections Commission(NEC) announced the final results of the just concluded October 10, 2023 general elections where his challenger and eventual winner of the contest Anthony F. Williams got 8,106 valid votes while Chambers was able to gather 8,025 votes, falling to a difference of 81 margin.
According to our correspondent in Pleebo City, the residents, many women and youth who had glued themselves to radio sets and other means of communications like Facebook, burst into the celebratory no sooner than they heard the final results, singing, dancing and chanting battle cries with some loud anti-Chambers slogans, “go Chambers go Mr. greedy hunter 18 wasted years you have nothing to show”
Several of the happy crowd who spoke to our correspondent said the day of celebration marked the end of “wicked and poor representation in the hand of the man who we trusted so much but let us down for no reasons”.
One of the jubilant crowd, Rufus Boima Atayi, a former President of the Pleebo Atayi Intellectual Discourse told our Maryland county correspondent that the resident of Pleebo District believe in democracy and democracy means talking about the will of the people and the will of the people should always prevail.
“As you can see the crowd, I am pleased because we believe in democracy and if we discuss about democracy automatically we should be talking about the people’s will and let the people’s will prevail. What has just happened in Pleebo where Bhofal Chambers has been defeated showed the will of the people has prevailed and they are indeed happy and free from the bondage the people have been subjected to.
“Honorable Chambers has served for a very long time, this time around I think it is better that he has been removed as you see around action speaks louder than words. Honorable Chambers served for eighteen years but if you look in Pleebo Sodoken District, you find a library and a small market that were constructed since 2013 but up to now the library doesn’t have books; there is nothing that you can count for this young man, honorable Chambers needs to leave the people at least the people of Pleebo Sodoken District have tried their best”, Rufus narrated.
According to Mr. Gineya other lawmakers from other counties are making headway developmentally but the issue of Pleebo District is on the contrary. According to him the spesker is always telling people about advocating for the masses but since he became speaker there is nothing Pleebo people can see from him. “Redundancy is still going on in our district, people are still using tractors to take people to work at the concession areas, so the advocacies are fake”, Gineya explained further.
Speaker Chambers is one of the longest serving term lawmakers in the history of Liberia since post war Liberia who has served for the period of eighteen years (18-years). He was elected during the 2005 October general and presidential elections on the ticket of the former ruling Unity Party, before crossing over to the Congress for Democratic Change (CDC) few years prior to the 2011 October Elections.
Representative Chambers of Electoral District #2 and Isaac Roland Blalu of District #3 are among the sitting lawmakers of the ruling CDC who will return to the national legislature in January, 2024 based upon the consolidated tally report provided by the National Elections Commission.
Honorable P. Mike Jurry of the lower house and Honorable J. Gble-Bo Brown of the senate are the two candidates of the ruling party who are in a comfortable lead from the tallies thus far and are set to return in January, 2024.
The celebration of the speaker defeat brought together motorcyclist, chiefs, student leaders, business men and women including class room teachers.
Meanwhile, speaking via mobile phone on the Liberia Broadcasting System LBS, on one of its evening shows, the District Press Secretary in the office of the speaker Mr. Bobby Addison told Journalist Tete Fuka Gebro that he will not conclude that election is not in Dr. Chambers’ favor for reasons that there are some cases of a “country devil” snatching ballot boxes with more 500 registered votes which needed to be accounted for and if that is done, Chambers stood a chance of being re-elected.
“Well I will not conclude that election is not in Dr. Chambers’ favor reason being that Dr. Chambers got cases back here in Old Sodoken where the country devil ceased ballot boxes of some 500 registered voters in that town or village and investigation has to take place before the national election commission can come out with the final result”, Bobby Addison narrated in his frustrated tone.
He also alleged that lot of big hands are behind the remover of speaker Bhofal Chambers because they want to become the next speaker.
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