Be
warned:
The National Elections
Commission and President Sirleaf must not compromise the 10 October 2017 presidential
and legislative elections.
On 17 September 2017, President
Sirleaf met with the 19 Magistrates of the National Elections Commission and a
select group of members of the Board of Commissioners of NEC including its
Chairperson, Cllr. Jerome Kokoya. At
that meeting, the Resident Representative of the United Nations Development
Programme (UNDP) who is also the Resident Coordinator of the UN Country Team
and Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary General of the UN was
present.
Based on our intelligence, one
major thing occurred during that meeting. We are reliably informed that the
President and team present have committed to give each magistrate twenty
thousand United States Dollar ($20,000. US). The reasons for this are for them
to sway the elections result in favor of the Coalition for Democratic Change (CDC),
and accommodate one thousand (1000) poll supervisors in four of the vote rich
counties including Montserrado, Nimba, Bong, Lofa and Grand Bassa. The One thousand names are said to come from
the CDC. Based on our intelligence, an additional 700 names from the CDC have
been suggested by Chairman Kokoya to become poll supervisors in the rest of the
eleven counties.
It is bad and unacceptable to
approach magistrates on such matters. They are being pressured daily to replace
elections supervisors that have been recruited with partisans of the CDC. Obviously,
the ultimate intent of this is to compromise the outcome of the 10 October 2017
Presidential and Legislative Elections. We strongly condemn this malicious
maneuvering and wish to send a strong warning to those involved. Any attempt to
compromise the results of the impending elections would meet a stiff resistance
from the social democratic forces of the Land.
It is also unacceptable for the
UN Resident Coordinator to begin having meetings with the President,
magistrates and some Board of Commissioners at the private residence of the
President. If he has good intentions, he must hold meetings either at UN
premises or at the offices of the National Elections Commission.
May God guide our steps as we
move to elections day.
