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Since the coming to power of the Coalition for Democratic Change (CDC) led government under the rule of footballer turned politician, George Manneh Weah, Liberia has in recent times witnessed the rise in political party switching, especially with the mass exodus of members of opposition parties defecting to the ruling party.
Liberia, now a multi-party democracy, suffered years of one party dominance when the True Whig Party (TWP) perpetuated itself in power unopposed for over a century. The country currently has over two dozen political parties.
However, if nothing is done soon to curb the waves of crossovers to the ruling CDC, the struggle for multiparty democracy taken up by many Liberian politicians including the late Gabriel Bacchus Matthews, the founder of the Progressive Alliance of Liberia (PAL), that later metamorphosed into the Progressive People’s Party (PPP), Liberia’s first legal opposition party, would all just turn out to be a farce.
Mass exodus to ruling CDC
On Tuesday, like many other days in recent times, a long list of opposition political party figures lined up at the oldest Congo Town headquarters of the lead party in a merger of three political institutions forming the Coalition for Democratic Change, the president’s party, the Congress for Democratic Change (CDC).
in November 2016, the Coalition for Democratic Change (CDC), comprising Weah’s Congress for Democratic Change (CDC), the former ruling National Patriotic Party (NPP) of detained ex-president Charles Taylor and deposed House Speaker Alex Tyler’s Liberia People Democratic Party (LPDP), granted Weah exclusive power in a three-party merger, even resolving to cement the Coalition on the foundation of Weah’s party, unanimously agreeing that the coalition was structured in such a way that the acronym of the president’s party, the CDC, was maintained.
Weah, who was handpicked as the Coalition’s sole presidential candidate, with the exclusive right to choose a running mate, did just that, when he, in turn, picked detained former President Taylor’s ex-wife, and Bong County former senator Jewel Howard Taylor.
At the Tuesday program for the admittance into the membership of the CDC of those switching over to the ruling party, it was recorded to date, that the number of those defecting is the single largest, with the total of some 14 individuals, some of whom are on record for saying worse things about the leader of the CDC, President Weah.
Many of the individuals crossing over to the main party in the ruling Coalition, the Congress for Democratic Change, have in the past publicly declared that Weah was unfit to lead the country, a situation giving rise to several Liberians questioning their decision to move over to the party headed by the former footballer turned politician, just within the period of eight months.
The cross-over program was characterized by sentimental remarks, mostly etched on the exhibition of credentials by the new entrants, with the likes of lawyer and environmental economist, Urias Goll; Accountant Benedict Williams; Statistician, Mariah Quaye Gilayeneh; Accountant, Cosby Pelham; Economist, Del Francis Wreh; Geologist, Armah Fulley; and Lawyer, Alben Greaves.
The rest are, Oil and gas management specialist, Matthew Jallah; Lawyer, Paul Hinneh; M&E Specialist, Oliver Taylor; ICT Specialist, David Dahn; Accountant, Emmanuel Delamy; Geoscientist, George Gontor; and Lawyer, Garmondeh Clinton.
“Keikura Kpotoism?”
Liberians speaking to PUNCH online service regarding the exodus of opposition political party members and other unattached politicians collectively term the issue as a calculated maneuver for jobs and pecuniary gains.
George Dean, a political commentator, for his part liken those recently capitulating to the ruling party as being no different from fallen Liberian politician Keikura B. Kpoto, who until his demise, vacillated from one political party to another, and was seen in nearly every new government, purposefully for personal gains.
Kpoto, who died in 2002 while serving as a senator of Lofa County and President Pro Tempore of the Liberian senate, was a key figure in the government of slain President Samuel Doe, even serving as the chairman of the late president’s political party, the National Democratic Party of Liberia (NDPL).
The former Lofa senator, PUNCH has reliably learned, had earlier masterminded the sales of fleet of fishing boats belonging to the late former business tycoon and late President William R. Tolbert’s brother Stephen Tolbert to a businessman in Freetown, just after the 1980 coup that took the life of ex-president Tolbert, with whom Kpoto had cordial ties.
Later when jailed former president Charles Taylor came to power, Kpoto, a henchman of Doe, saw nothing wrong with operating with the same people who sent the standard bearer of the NDPL to his grave, along with approximately 250,000 others.
Kpoto was considered a master at subterfuge and sycophancy, a tag many Liberians are now placing on those on the bandwagon to the CDC, of course, they are doing so within a system that honors such ideals.
Several other Liberians, who have taken onto social media to discuss the massive movement of droves of individuals the CDC is attracting just within a little close to eight months of being the ruling party, are mostly against the party-switching in favor of the president’s party.
Clarence Farley, who appeared apprehensive over the defections, questioned the sincerity of some of the individuals involved in the party- switching.
Clarence, in apparent reaction to comments attributed to Oliver Taylor, one of those involved with the political cross-over, wrote on his official Facebook page: “Do you now believe dull Oppong [President Weah] can make a better president”? My big brother, Oliver Sarnadeh Taylor, was well seated…”
