By Stephen G. Fellajuah
MONROVIA: The National Elections Commission(NEC) has finally ended the suspense surrounding the total number of Liberians who will participate in the ensuing general elections when it yesterday released the final BVR figure of registrants as 2,471, 617 having concluded the exhibition, deduplication and adjudication process of the 2023 biometric voter registration with Montserrado County retaining its number 1 spot with 901,162 persons, followed by Nimba at 307,254 and River Gee being the least at 37,807 registrants.
The total number of registrants from the various counties by alphabetical order are, Bomi County 63,112, Bong County 234, 767, Gbarpulu County 50, 615, Grand Bassa County158, 462, Cape Mount County 86, 529, Grand Gedeh County 63,942, Grand Kru County 42,396, Lofa County 177,129, Margibi County 185,302, Maryland County 67,. 600, Montserrado County 901, 162, Nimba County 307, 254, River Gee County 37,807, Rivercess County 39,941, and Sinoe County 55, 579, totaling 2,471, 617.
Addressing a news conference Monday, July 17, 2023 at the headquarters of the NEC, Chairperson Davidetta Browne Lansanah said of the total number of registrants, the females registrants were 1,237, 257 and the male figure was recorded as 1,234,360, meaning there are will be more female voters in the country than their male counterparts. She said that the details to the aggregated figure will be available to the public as soon as possible.
She had historicized that NEC from the 12th to 17th of June 2023 conducted the exhibition of the provisional registration roll having conducted the voters registration exercise from the 20 March to 11 May 2023. Prior to the exhibition, the NEC announced the preliminary figures of 2, 498, 904, of which 27, 192 duplicate records were identified. 529 suspected under age registrants were flagged and the total number of active registrants was 2, 471, 183.
According to Cllr. Brown Lassanah, both active registrants and suspected under age registrants were exhibited during the period stated above. Following the conclusion of the exhibition exercise, the Commission on 13 July 2023 demonstrated to the National Steering Committee on Elections the results and provided information to the Committee how the deduplication and adjudication processes were conducted.
The National Steering Committee on Elections is chaired by the Minister of Justice, Frank Musa Dean, Co-Chaired by ECOWAS Commission and Resident Representative in Liberia, and the United Nations Resident Coordinator in Liberia.
She furthered that similar exercise for political parties was held under the Inter Party Consultative Committee (IPCC), on 14 June 2023 at which time the Commission demonstrated the outcome of the exhibition with reference to the deduplication and the adjudication provisional registration roll.
“I am to announce the final figure of the registered voters that will participate in the 10 October 2023 general elections. The figure is 2, 471, 617. This number represents 1, 237, 257 females and 1, 234, 360 males. Detail to this aggregated figure will be available to the public”, the NEC boss stated.
On the 2023 nomination, she recounted that the nomination of candidates for the 2023 Elections commenced on 14 June 2023 and concluded on 14 July 2023 as planned. “The NEC is pleased to report that a total of 1, 030 aspirants submitted nomination documents to the Commission during the process. Of this number, 159, constituting 15% are females, While 871 or 85% are males, she added.
Madam Lansanah went on further to say that independent aspirants account for 199, constituting 19%, while aspirants for political parties, coalitions, alliances are 831 or 81%. As per the electoral timeline, the provisional list of candidates will be published on 18 July 2023 and the final list will be published on 5th August 2023.