Opposition Cheers Dillon, Telia Victories -But CDC Says Opposition “claiming victory they don’t have”

The four opposition collaborating political parties of Liberia, along with all of its supporters and affiliates yesterday congratulated its Candidates in the Montserrado Senatorial and Representative by-elections and call on the CDC to concede defeat gradually and immediately begin working on reconciliation and nation building process, but the ruling Coalition for Democratic Change dismissed the opposition’s claim, saying the opposition political parties and candidates are already celebrating “a victory they don’t have”; The ANALYST’s Bill Jarkloh reports.

In a statement issued yesterday, the collaborating political parties and its supporters
also congratulated first and foremost the Liberian people for believing in the institution of democracy.

The opposition’s statement admired the turnout of the Liberian people in exercising the muscle of the ballot in the recent bye-elections for the vacant Montserrado county senatorial District # 15 representative seats in the National Legislature.

The Senatorial Seat for Montserrado County was made vacant by the death of Senator Geraldine Doe-Sheriff while the District #15 representative seat was made vacant by the demise of Representative Adolph Lawrence.

Accordingly, the Liberty Party’s Darius Dillon and the All-Liberian Party’s Telia Urey undertook to challenge the ruling CDC’s Paulita Wie for the Senate and Abu Kamara for the House of Representatives amongst other candidates.

Preliminary results from tally sheets posted at various polling places have indicated what was said to be “convincing leads” which is disputed by the CDC.

In their statement signed by the Liberty Party chairman Senator Stephen J.H Zargo, ANC Secretary General Aloysius Toe, Unity Party Standard bearer Joseph N. Boakai and collaborating political Parties Benoni Urey-Chairman, the opposition collaborating parties implored the people to continue to strengthen the tenets of democracy in this republic.

The statement said Liberians must continue to engage democracy with the sort of attitude displayed in Montserrado County on July 29, 2019.

“Through their massive and relentless show of support for their preferred choices, the people of Montserrado have demonstrated their resolve and have restated their determination to reinstate good democracy, good governance, and the rule of law,” the statement said.

Additionally, the collaborating political parties further congratulated the senator-elect, Mr. Abraham Darius Dillon of the Liberty, and Representative- elect, Ms. Telia Urey of the ALP on occasions of their irreversibly resounding victory.

“These results demonstrate the Liberian people’s commitment to positive change and their desire for better governance and improved quality of life. We hope that these victories serve has a precedent for all future elections in the country,” the opposition’s statement noted.

“At this juncture, we are in this public manner calling on the government of Liberia, to allow the results of these elections to stand as they are at the polls, and call on the nation and the CDC to concede defeat gradually and immediately begin working on reconciliation and the nation-building process,” the opposition’s statement concluded.

But the ruling Coalition for Democratic Change quickly reacted in a press release, claiming what it calls “Authoritative Lead” in the by-elections.

   “The Chairman of the ruling Coalition for Democratic Change (CDC), Mulbah Morlu, has told journalists during a press conference that reports in the possession of the party show that both their senatorial candidate and District 15 candidate are leading in the Montserrado County by-elections,” the CDC’s reaction contained.

According to Morlu, the opposition political parties and candidates are already celebrating “a victory they don’t have,” saying “We want all of our supporters to remain calm and demonstrate a high level of patriotism during this period of opposition to claim a victory that they don’t have.”

Morlu further added, “Reports in our possession shows authoritative lead in the two by-elections and we would not follow the opposition to claim the victory or to undermine the truism of the tally sheets signed by poll watchers and records of the National Elections.”

The CDC Chairman’s comments come after the Independent candidate Kimmie Weeks, one of the candidates in the senatorial race has already congratulated opposition candidate Darius Dillon of the Liberty Party who had the backing of the collaborating opposition political parties.

Provisional results coming from the various polling centers have shown show that Dillon is in an early lead.

Earlier, Liberty Party Chairman, Steve Zargo told a news conference that results gathered by their observers from various polling centers show that Dillon is in the lead with over 20,000 votes difference as the National Elections Commission began the tallying of results Tuesday afternoon. The National Elections Commission (NEC) Chairman says final results would be released within 48 hours.

Meanwhile, report from NEC has it that the commission will announce results of the Senatorial and Representative today, July 31.

The National Elections Commission had already started tallying ballots yesterday at the James S. Fromoyan Conference Room of the Commission. Our reporter assigned at the Headquarters of the National Elections Commission said tallying of the votes should have taken place at 12:00 PM, but NEC delayed the counting for at least one hour to allow for full representation of party representatives and officials of the collaborating political parties.

Speaking at the start of the count of the votes on 9th Street in Sinkor, the Commissioner for Election Affairs, Jonathan K. Weedor, welcomes everyone at the Commission’s Tallying Center, and admonished all stakeholders to be transparent.

Meanwhile the tallying of vote results by NEC will continue until Wednesday at which time the commission would announced the official and finally results of the winner in the just ended July 29,2019 Senatorial and Representative Elections