NEC Board of Commissioners Upholds CPP Victory

The Board of Commissioners at the National Elections Commission (NEC) has dismissed the Unity Party (UP) appeal and upheld its Hearing Officer decision to bar UP from fielding a candidate in the Lofa County senatorial by election slated May 10, 2022.

Last week, after several weeks of litigation, the NEC Hearing Officer ruled against the Unity Party  which later announced an appeal to the Board of Commissioners.

In its ruling Monday, April 24, the NEC Board of Commissioners said as a political regulatory body, it has all legal authority to adjudicate disputes arising between political parties based on their constitutions submitted to the NEC in keeping with Law.

NEC Board of Commissioners said after a careful review of its Hearing Officer, saw no merit in the bill of exception against his ruling of last week.

According to the NEC Board of Commissioners, it could not declare the  certified framework document of the Collaborating Political Parties (CPP) based on mere unproven allegations of fraud as claimed by the All Liberian Party and the Unity Party.

The NEC Board of Commissioners said the Collaborating Political Parties (CPP) framework document remains legitimate and would hold the ALP and UP liable to the agreement reached in keeping with the law.

The presumptive Standard Bearer of the Collaborating Political Parties (CPP), Mr. Alexander Cummings  had earlier lauded the April 21 Ruling of the NEC Hearing Officer as an important victory for the CPP and the Liberian people.

Mr. Cummings said  Liberians cannot continue doing the same things over and over, and still hope to get a different result.

“It is time to change so that leaders are held to higher standards of public accountability, and we act to preserve the rule of law”, he said

The ANC Political Leader said it was impossible to ignore the wholly false and deceptive representation to the NEC that the Unity Party (UP) and the All Liberian Party (ALP) “did not sign” the Framework Agreement of the CPP, and cannot therefore be bound by its provisions, and that the framework document was a “product of fraud,” the CPP Presumptive Leader said.

Mr. Cummings in statement said the CPP “silence and inaction would have represented ALP and UP falsehood to be true, to both the NEC and the Liberian people, when not only do we know this to be misleading, but those who made such claims knew them to be false.”

“The Alternative National Congress (ANC) and the Liberty Party (LP) were therefore forced into a public challenge of the UP and the ALP, which ordinarily we would have decided against doing,” Cummings said.

 The CPP said it is “mindful of not deepening the distrust and disunity in the opposition community, which will only benefit President Weah, whose administration has irredeemably failed the Liberian people.”

Mr. Cummings is hopeful that the alternative to the failed leadership of President Weah, which the opposition seeks to provide the Liberian people, would be one of honesty, to be measured by truth-telling, however difficult it may be.