Grand Bassa County Senator and Liberty Party (LP) Political leader, Nyonblee Karnga-Lawrence has termed the undergoing hearing and interpretation of section 8.5 of the controversial Collaborating Political Parties (CPP) document that seeks to prevent the former ruling Unity Party (UP) and the All Liberian Party (ALP) from fielding candidate in the Lofa County by-election and other future elections at the Nation Election Commission (NEC) of Liberia as nonsense case that is mark by serious manipulation.
The former CPP Chair said the case makes no sense because nobody has authority to violate the constitutional right of another person, adding that for the NEC to hear a case that says you cannot disassociate as the Constitution of Liberia requires is completely wrong.
Speaking briefly in an interview with newsmen on Saturday, April 16, 2022 at the Unity Party (UP) national headquarters in central Monrovia after she was honored by the Women Congress of the UP, the Liberty Party (LP) Political Leader indicated that the Constitution of Liberia provides for the freedom to associate and disassociate and any attempt to prevent anybody from doing that is against their constitutional rights.
“The case at the NEC does not make any sense. You are all human beings and nobody can violate your constitutional rights. Unlike to say that you cannot disassociate. I just do not know why they are even having a case. However, that shows that there is a manipulation. We will make sure that we restore this country. What we need to do to restore the sanity of this country and the hope of the younger generation goes beyond our personal feelings’’ Senator Karnga-Lawrence expressed.
Unity Party and a faction of the Liberty Party chaird by Mr. Musa Hassan Bility with the Alternative National Congress of Alexander B. Cummings under the banner of the Collaborating Political Party (CPP) are before the NEC on account of CPP’s request for the electoral body to forbid the UP and the ALP to register candidate in the party owned name for the upcoming Lofa by-election.
The Bility’s LP faction and the ANC believe that a clause within the controversial Framework document of the crumbled Collaborating Political Parties would disqualify UP and ALP from fielding candidates in the Lofa by-election after the withdrawal of their memberships from the Collaboration.
Both LP and ANC indicated that they called the Commission’s attention to Section 8.5(2) of the CPP Framework document which prescribes the process by which a CPP constituent party may withdraw its membership from the CPP.
They noted that Section 8.5 (2) of the CPP document states: “Constituent party desiring to withdraw its membership from the Collaboration Political Parties shall (First) exhaust the dispute resolution mechanism stipulated in this Framework document.
“If the constituent party which has satisfied the dispute mechanism is not satisfied with the outcome, it shall file a resolution to withdraw from the CPP signed and duly executed by two-thirds (2/3) of membership of its National Executive Committee.”
The ANC and Bility’s faction of LP argued that a party withdrawing from the alliance prior to the next presidential, legislative and local elections shall not field candidates in its name.
The parties say in line with the Framework document, they were informing NEC that they are invoking Section 8.5 (2) of the CPP Framework document and requesting that the Commission reject and deny any application from the ALP and UP to field candidates in their respective names in any election until the end of 2023 election including 6 months thereafter the same being the agreed contractual life of the CPP.
But UP insists that it is not a signatory to the controversial CPP Framework document submitted to the Elections Commission by embattled Bility and the ANC, which ANC Political Leader Mr. Alexander B. Cummings is currently facing criminal trial after being accused by ALP Political Leader Benoni Urey of allegedly tampering with the CPP Framework document and illegally attaching his (Urey’s) signature to a photocopy version. Cummings has always denied any wrongdoing.
But senator Karnga-Lawrence in a loud tone said that they have made up their minds and have decided to fight collectively for the restoration of Liberia and no amount of insults, chaos, fights, lies and misrepresentation will ever stop them from fighting for the restoration of the country. ‘’To see that there is a fear for the level of work that we are about to do, some of the case and issues that we have to go through make no sense. However, we are not going to give up, she added.
She noted “We will stand together and win together. I want to promise the women of Liberia that 2023 is the time for us to take that one piece of lapper and tie it tightly because the 2023 decision depends on us. We will go in every community, village, town, and will make sure everywhere our feets can carry us whether on motorbikes, we will ride because the fight we are to fight is not about us but Liberia and we will do it together. We will get there together because there is nothing that can change destiny.”
