The United Nations and the West African sub-regional grouping, ECOWAS have both expressed satisfaction with the peaceful conduct of Tuesday’s polls and the development of Liberian democracy so far.
“Secretary-General welcomes the peaceful holding of the presidential and House of Representatives elections in Liberia on 10 October. He congratulates the people of Liberia who turned out enthusiastically in high numbers to vote,” a press statement released by the UN Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) said in Monrovia on Thursday.
Stephane Dujarric, Spokesman for the Secretary-General says the UN chief also commends the efforts of the National Elections Commission and security institutions for this important milestone in the history of Liberia.
Liberian women’s groups have also come in for praise “for their active and important role in the electoral process. International and national observers have also provided important contributions.”
The UN Secretary-General has reiterated the continued support of the United Nations to the consolidation of peace and democracy in Liberia.
At the same time, the ECOWAS Special Representative to Liberia Tunde Ajisome says, ‘’in spite of some isolated cases such as the late arrival of voting materials and commencement of polls, congested polling centers, poor understanding of some poll workers of the process among others; the voting was generally peaceful..
Ajisomo has encouraged all political party supporters to avoid early celebration and look up to the National Elections Commission for official results from last Tuesday’s polls.
His statement was contained in a post-election report released on in Monrovia on Wednesday by the Liberia Elections Early Warning and Response Group (LEEWARG), set up and supported by ECOWAS.
The Liberia elections early warning and response group was launched Monday in Monrovia as a platform to monitor reports analyze and facilitate response to violent threats to the 2017 elections.
Ajisomo, who is Chairman of LEEWARG, called on political parties, supporters and the entire citizenry to remain calm while waiting on the NEC in executing its constitutional mandate.
‘’The Liberia Elections Early Warning and Response Group LEEWARG and its partners wish to re-emphasize that the country has once again demonstrated its resilience as a democratic nation,’’ the ECOWAS envoy noted.
According to him, it is also important that supporters of political parties avoid celebration and await the NEC for the official results, noting that announcing unofficial results has the potential to ignite unnecessary tensions during the critical period of promising democracy.
The report said Liberia has entered in to a very crucial phase of the electoral process, which is the counting, collating, verification and announcing of results across the country.
‘’Let us continue to consolidate our democracy by respecting the legal, institutional, administrative frameworks governing our electoral process’’ he noted.
The platform on Tuesday October 10, 2017 deployed forty- three (43) accredited elections monitors in the 73 electoral districts across the country.
The observers will use checklist of 66 questions divided in to four sections to monitor the voting process in the assigned areas.
The reports will be sent to the LEEWARG situation rooms through phone calls from the field.
LEEWARG’s Election Situation Room (LEEWARG ESR) is a platform which has been set up by the West Africa Network for Peace Building (WANEP) as one of its contributions to a peaceful electoral process.
The LEEWARG Election Situation Room is hosted at the ECOWAS Liaison Office with the kind support of the Austrian Development Agency, Sweden and DANIDA.
The body is a Coordinated Election Observation platform for the 2017 presidential and parliamentary elections of Liberia put in place in collaboration with relevant stakeholders with the primary objective to coordinate and recommend strategies to mitigate threats to the peaceful conduct of the elections.
This process started in April 2017 with the development and validation of a set of elections early warning indicators for the monitoring of violent threats during the October elections in Liberia.
The group is made up of eminent personalities of civil society organizations, security agencies, government and non-governmental institutions, faith-based groups, development partners as well as the media, women and youth groups with a mandate to monitor, deliberate and recommend response strategies to violent threats to the elections. Reporter Alfred Kollie contributed to this story