06 October 2017

 

LIBERIA MEDIA HIGHLIGHTS

Final Batch of Ballots on Ground, Source: Daily OBSERVER

Authorities of the National Elections Commission (NEC) have confirmed that the final batch of ballot forms for the representative elections arrived from Ghana yesterday. This consignment containing the balance 26 of the 73 total pallets was received at the Roberts International Airport in Margibi County by NEC executive director, Lamin Lighe. On September 28, the NEC received 47 pallets of representative ballots and yesterday’s arrival of 26 pallets brings the total to over three million ballots procured for the 73 electoral districts. The pallets were offloaded and subsequently conveyed to NEC headquarters under the protection of armed police officers.

Mr. Lighe told journalists that the arrival of the remaining representative ballots concluded the delivery of all election-related materials procured outside of the country.

Brumskine poised to win, Source: The New Dawn

The New Dawn reports that Liberty Party’s presidential candidate, Cllr. Charles Brumskine is pretty seated and poised to win Tuesday, 10 October presidential election with latest poll rating placing him ahead of major candidates in the race for the presidency.

According to the report, Cllr. Brumskine has remained consistent and passionate about his capacity to lead Liberia out of what he called the dungeon of bad governance characterized by corruption, lack of transparency, and accountability.

The presidential candidate wants to considerably reduce illiteracy and poverty in Liberia. To achieve this, he has vowed to make education free both at primary and secondary levels, if elected as well as increase teachers’ salary to maintain qualified personnel in the classroom.

Several parties in coma?, Source: The New Dawn

The New Dawn reports that several political parties and their presidential candidates appear to have gone into a coma for reasons best known to them, given the level of uncertainty over when they will ever launch their political campaign for the Tuesday, 10 October presidential and representatives elections. The parties include the Redemption Democratic Congress (RDC) of George Dweh, New Liberian Party (NLP), and the Movement for Economic Empowerment (MOVEE) of Dr. J. Mills Jones.

Will Ballots Get to Polling Centers in Time? , Source: Daily OBSERVER

The huge infrastructure deficit that Liberia faces, especially roads at this time of the year, is a huge worry for the head of the EU Elections Observer Mission, Maria Arena, who feels it would negatively impact the elections.

On her recommendation to major stakeholders in the electoral process, Ms Arena said “This is a Liberian process and it is left to Liberians to handle, but if I were to make any recommendation at any given day about the process, I would advise that the time from the election be changed from this period to the dry season.”

Changing the electoral timeframe to the dry season, she said, would help to make the process more participatory by making everyone throughout the country accessible.

Senate Judiciary Committee Passes Transition Act, Votes Rape Bailable by Law, Source: Daily OBSERVER

The plenary of the Senate through its Committee on Judiciary has developed it’s own Presidential Transition Act (PTA) after a motion proffered by Senator Conmany Wesseh. The Act had earlier been submitted to the Senate by President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, which she later withdrew.

On Tuesday, the Senate received a developed report on the Act from Senator Varney Sherman and was subsequently passed unanimously and forwarded to the House of Representatives for concurrence.

The purpose of the Act, according to the Senate, is to establish arrangements for the proper management and transfer of political power or administration from one democratically elected president to another.

Meanwhile, also on Tuesday, the Senate voted to amend the Rape Law after it received a report from its Judiciary Committee recommending that rape should be a bailable offense as is provided for in the Draft Act submitted by Senator J. Milton Teahjay a few months ago.

The committee also recommended that an accused person on bail for the commission of the crime of rape should report to the court that granted the bail on a monthly basis and that reporting should occur on the monthly anniversary of the grant of the bail.

The amended version of the law, meanwhile, has been sent to the House of Representatives for concurrence.

Liberia's Amended Rape Law Sparks Protest at Capitol Hill in Monrovia, Sources: FrontPage Africa and The New Dawn

A group of young advocates under the banner Concern Citizens of Liberia Thursday gathered at the Capitol Building and called on the Senate to establish a fast track court to handle rape cases rather than amending the rape law by making it bailable.

Alexander Cummings Decries Senate Action to Amend Liberia’s Rape Law, Sources: Daily OBSERVER, FrontPage Africa, and The New Dawn

The presidential candidate of the Alternative National Congress (ANC), Mr. Alexander Cummings has reacted sharply to the amendment of Liberia’s rape law which originally treated rape as a non-bailable offense. The amendment was made on Tuesday. According to Mr. Cummings, with this action, the Senate is prioritizing bailing out accused rapists instead of giving due attention to upholding the judicial system and to ensuring swift justice for women traumatized by rape.

Government to Commission Audit in GVG ‘Illegal Contract’ With LTA, Source: FrontPage Africa

Information Minister, Lenn Eugene Nagbe, has disclosed that the government will commission a forensic audit into the contract between the Liberia Telecommunications Authority (LTA) and Global Voice Group (GVG). “If any illegal or inappropriate activity came out of the exercise, the audit with lay same to bare and the requisite actions will be effected by the government,” Minister Nagbe said.

The need for the forensic audit arose from a FrontPage Africa publication disclosing the alleged fraudulent nature in which the contract was awarded.

According to the information minister, the results of the audit will be made public. Additionally, the government further clarifies that no such scheme was ever employed to fund the 2011 campaign of the governing Unity Party.

Ellen breaks grounds for Public Health Institute, Sources: FrontPage Africa and The New Dawn

President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and US Ambassador Christine Elder Thursday broke grounds for the construction of facilities for a National Public Health Institute (NPHIL), National Reference and Regional Reference Laboratory at the SKD Boulevard Junction in Congo Town, Paynesville.

During the event, President Sirleaf said the initiative was worth celebrating because it will not only go beyond public disease control center that will be built but will also bring the people to consciousness to continue the individual practices such as hand washing and other measures that enable “us” to keep safe.

INTERNATIONAL MEDIA ON LIBERIA

Liberian election chief appeals to poll rivals, Sources: APA and Journal du Cameroun

Liberia’s National Elections Commission (NEC) has appealed to all political stakeholders, especially political parties, candidates and the media to act within the law to ensure peaceful presidential and legislative elections on October 10.“Elections are all about rules” the NEC Chairman Jerome Korkoya told a weekly press conference at the commission’s headquarters in Monrovia on Wednesday.

He enjoined all stakeholders to eschew spreading false information, which could erode public confidence and undermine peace and security in post-war Liberia.

He appealed for non-violence, and urged recourse to the legal option for the settlement of any dispute that might arise from the polls.

According to the NEC chief, the electoral process remains on course with security in place and deployment of poll materials proceeding according to plan.

Is ex-warlord Charles Taylor pulling Liberia's election strings from prison?, Source: BBC News

Liberia's former President Charles Taylor is currently serving a 50-year sentence for war crimes in a prison in the British city of Durham. But is he using that as a base to interfere in the elections in his homeland next Tuesday? "If he was to come back today, I'd roll out the red carpet," said Justin Luther Cassell, a 32-year-old man sitting outside the Pray for Peace Business Centre in Gbartala, central Liberia. Gathered round on plastic chairs, drinking beer and discussing the forthcoming Liberian elections, the men here are clearly frustrated.

This was Charles Taylor's rebel headquarters in the 1990s. The former military base may be crumbling, with buildings almost completely engulfed by the jungle, but Taylor's name is still as strong as ever in Bong County. More than five years since the former president was sentenced for war crimes committed in neighboring Sierra Leone, people in his heartland are still harking back to the old days.

Liberian women hold mass fast for peaceful elections, Source: The Citizen

Dressed in identical printed skirts, a hundred Liberian women knelt in prayer after another long day in three weeks of fasting, appealing once more that their country be spared of violence.

Ahead of elections next Tuesday, women of all ages are gathering from dawn to sunset on a roadside close to the party headquarters of several presidential candidates.

Their daily injunction for peace echoes the female activism that helped end Liberia’s civil wars, which ran back-to-back from 1989 to 2003.

The success of their non-violent protests propelled the bloodied West African state into the world headlines and earned a Nobel Peace Prize for one of its leaders.

“We led the process in 2002 and 2003 for the Liberian women’s mass action for peace. We are still assisting in maintaining this peace that we have,” Delphine Morris, national coordinator for the Women in Peacebuilding Network (WIPNET), said on Wednesday.

Liberia’s ballot riddled with legacy of civil conflict, Source: The Irish Times

On Redemption Beach, a small crowd has gathered, agitating for a glimpse of a man they call the “King of Hipco”. Takun J, pioneer of a musical genre meshing hip-hop with Liberian vernacular, is Liberia’s most popular musician. Long known for his pull-no-punches lyrics criticizing the nation’s politicians, he is now on the stump.

Next Tuesday, the country will vote in an election widely seen as a test of its hard-won, still fragile peace. Takun J – his real name is Jonathan V Koffa – is running for district representative on the ticket of presidential hopeful Alexander B Cummings, a former Coca-Cola executive and one of the only candidates with a clean political slate.

The country’s 14-year civil war came to an end in 2003. But, even today, the ballot is riddled with the legacy of conflict. Among the presidential candidates is Prince Johnson, a former warlord, and Benoni Urey, the richest man in Liberia – both have ties to former president Charles Taylor, jailed in the UK for war crimes committed in neighboring Sierra Leone (as yet, Taylor has not been held to account for crimes in his own country).

'Jungle Jabbah's' war: Accused Liberian's own story emerges in court, Source: The Inquirer

All week, his fellow Liberians have lined up outside a Philadelphia federal courtroom to accuse alleged war criminal Mohammed Jabateh of acts of unfathomable cruelty.

But on Thursday, the jury weighing the 51-year-old East Lansdowne man’s immigration-fraud case heard for the first time Jabateh’s own account of the ethnic conflict that ravaged his native country in the early 1990s.

Like many of his accusers, he, too, said he had been persecuted based on his tribal affiliation. Like them, he also saw loved ones raped and gunned down while attempting to escape the chaos. And, he told U.S. immigration officers in 1998, his time during the war could be traced by the scars left on his body by torture.

“I was whipped repeatedly, flogged and burned with cigarettes,” Jabateh wrote in a six-page statement filed as part of an application for political asylum in the United States. “I would not be fed for several days and had numerous injuries on my body.”

Disclaimer
 

This media summary consists of selected local media articles for the information of UN personnel. The public distribution of this media summary is a courtesy service extended by UNMIL on the understanding that the choice of articles included is exclusive, and the contents do not represent anything other than a selection of articles likely to be of interest to a United Nations readership. The inclusion of articles in this summary does not imply endorsement by UNMIL.

 

 

 

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