By our Reporter
With just less than 48 hours to the December 26, 2017 presidential runoff election, there appears to be no end in sight in the feud between the Boakai camp of the ruling Unity Party (UP) and that of the Standard Bearer Emeritus President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf.
The official Spokesman for the UP, Mo Ali and other backers of the Boakai ticket repeated their claims that the Liberian leaders is fully backing the presidential bid of George Weah of the Coalition for Democratic Change (CDC) against her deputy Joseph Boakai in Tuesday’s presidential runoff election, a claim the Liberian leader has denied.
Last Thursday’s ground breaking ceremony for the Gbarnga-Salayea road co-performed by Weah has been restated as proof of the President’s support for Weah’s presidential bid.
On Sunday, UP’s spokesman Ali rubbished statement by River Gee County Senator Commany Wesseh on a local radio in the central city of Gbarnga that Vice President Boakai was officially invited to the ground breaking ceremony by the President and that she was not backing CDC.
Ali told local radio that they have been told by VP Boakai that he was never invited to the Lofa road ceremony and in fact he did not know exactly when the ground breaking should have taken place.
The rift between Africa’s first elected female president and her own party has even deepened further, with the permit given to Weah’s CDC to use the newly removed Samuel Kanyon Doe Sports Stadium for the holding of their final runoff campaign rally on Saturday.
The UP official claimed, “It was based on the instruction of the President…the CDC’s use of the SKD.”
At the same time, Boakai’s supporters in the UP have revealed that “powerful government officials” in the Sirleaf administration have given instructions to the CDC to take to the streets a day after the election on Wednesday, December 27 “for pre-victory celebration”.
UP’s spokesman Ali is calling on the National Elections Commission not to allow such an activity.
“If NEC doesn’t stop them, we won’t take it lightly,” the UP official warned.
But there has so far been no reaction from the presidency. A number phone calls made to the President’s press officers did not go through.