By Frank Sainworla, Jr. fsainworla@yahoo.com
As ballots are being counted and tallied across Liberia, National Elections Commission (NEC) Chairman Jerome Korkoya says the body will hopefully start releasing official results from the October 10 polls this Thursday.
Addressing a news conference in Monrovia Wednesday, Korkoya said “NEC is the only institution that has the power to release election results in Liberia.”
His statement followed the release of unofficial results from polling centers in the capital and other parts of the country, which have been broadcast on radio and TV stations since polling ended Tuesday evening.
The exit polls have begun to give a picture of the trend of the voting. The incumbent Vice President Joseph Boakai of the ruling Unity Party (UP), the main opposition candidate George Weah of the Coalition for Democratic Change (CDC) appear to be recording some of the highest votes at polling centers that have already completed counting.
The NEC Chairman responded to criticisms raised Tuesday by international and local election observers of some shortcomings or irregularities in the conduct of the process.
Some voters spoke of being turned away by poll workers who told them that their names were not on the final voters’ roll. In other cases photos were not on the voting cards of some people. Others complained that queue officers were not available to direct voters which polling places to go.
The opposition CDC and the Alternative National Congress (ANC) of for international Coca Cola executive Alexander Cummings raised concerns about what they said were a number of election irregularities.
CDC Chairman Nathaniel McGill said, “I think people shouldn’t be denied in a democratic process; it is the right of all Liberians to vote no matter what.”
At Wednesday’s news conference, Korkoya did admit that the hitches and technical problems experienced on polling day were being addressed by his elections management body.
“We’ve already admitted that our queue controllers were not at their best in many places…As a result voters were confused,” the NEC chairman noted.
He then apologized for the frustration caused by the situation, but denied that NEC had limited staff to conduct the polls.
“We’ll use this as lesson learned,” he said.
The NEC boss however noted that all those who remained in the queue that day were allowed to vote. It’s said that a number of them may have felt weary and left polling stations and never got the chance to exercise their democratic franchise.
“There are problems with elections everywhere,” Korkoya said but NEC’s key concern was to remedy the problem.
So far, the peace and calm that existed on polling day continues in Monrovia and other parts of Liberia, as citizens wait to hear who will eventually emerge victorious in both the hotly contested presidential and legislative races.