By MV Paasewe
Former football star George M. Weah won the 2017 presidential elections fair and square. Weah and his CDC were the underdogs going against the incumbent Unity Party whose standard bearer Joseph Nyuma Boakai had served 12 unbroken years as vice president under outgoing president Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf. Although many would agree that Madam Sirleaf’s open endorsement of George Weah did more damage to her Vice President’s hope of ascending to the Executive Mansion after her tenure, it is unarguable that the decision by the then opposition camp’s Congress for Democratic Change (CDC) to merge with the National Patriotic Party (NPP) of Jewel Howard-Taylor and Alex Geneka Tyler’s Liberia People’s Democratic Party (LPDP) actually sealed the doom of the Unity Party.
Since then, a lot of water has gone under the political bridge, pointing to the citizens’ displeasure over how the ruling CDC has mismanaged governance. The Montserrado County 2019 and 2020 midterm elections which saw Abraham Darius Dillon whipping the ruling party dismally in their own stronghold; the results from 2020 by-elections in other parts of the country that saw a woeful performance from the ruling party’s chosen candidates proved that the CDC was losing its grips on the grassroots sector upon which it had hinged its 2017 victory; and that the united opposition front was capitalizing on the ruling party’s vast misrule.
But fast forward to December 2022, few months to the holding of the next presidential and general elections in Liberia, the political cards that are starting to play even before the National Elections Commission’s official date for political campaign, show that the ruling party is now poised to regain its top spot mainly because of the current dishevelled nature of the opposition community.
Why do I say this?
The opposition community is so divided that it doesn’t know how to capitalize on the shortcomings of the incumbent. The Liberty Party has been split between UP’s Joe Boakai and Cummings’ ANC, to the extent that even a final ruling from the Supreme Court over the party’s leadership legitimacy will do no good. The LP is obviously split in the middle by the fight within the Collaborating Political Parties (CPP) over who represents Liberia’s biggest opposition tent at the presidential elections. Nyonblee, the LP political leader, supports JNB, while her National Chairman Musa Hassan Bility supports Alexander Cummings to lead the opposition community against incumbent president George M. Weah. Of course, the ruling party continues to play on the CPP infighting to its advantage. As things stand, there is absolutely no way the CPP will become the formidable force that once put “sand in CDC’s gari” in 2019 and 2020 in Montserrado County and other parts of the country.
Fighting a proxy war for the CDC
If they don’t know by now, the main opposition community, by dint of their infighting, is actually fighting a proxy war on behalf of the ruling establishment. Instead of uniting on a common ground to engage and convince the voters on why the opposition presents the best alternative to their livelihood woes, the opposition community is busy fighting each other over trivialities. Sadly, the handlers of the two biggest opposition tents (Unity Party and CPP) are doing absolutely nothing to resolve this issue, as they gleefully continue to drag one another in the mud, thinking that they are upending each other, while the ruling party laughs at their childish tantrums. The opposition community is more engaged in trash-talking one another about photo ops and other mundane inconsequential issues, while neglecting the importance of consulting and collaborating on substantive events that would send strong signals to the voters and the international community that all is not right in the country. But no! the endgame of showmanship is all that matters for the opposition community.
Power of Incumbency
The Liberian opposition is failing to recognize that the incumbent has undue influence over the transparency, freeness and fairness of any electoral process. This government has all of these factors as added advantage. Financial resources. Logistics. Ability to convince government workers to vote accordingly. Given these glaringly ominous circumstances, the opposition community has nothing to lose and all to gain by consolidating itself to meet these challenges head-on. But let me be blunter. If you (the opposition community) are depending on the United States Government to correct your internal mistakes after 2023 by crying that the election is not credible, you’re on your own.
My conclusion
Is it too late for the opposition camp to consolidate and give Mr. Weah a good run for his money on October 10, 2023? I really don’t know. But one thing I know is that the opposition has absolutely nothing to gain by fighting one another over petty issues that have little or no substance to the grievous circumstances that attend our common patrimony.
Other than that, President George Manneh Weah and the Coalition for Democratic Change will have the easiest ride to a second term victory in 2023, mainly because Liberia’s opposition camp failed to do their homework.
