-Crack in the opposition Collaborating Political Parties
By Our Staff Writer
Millionaire Liberian businessman and Chairman of the opposition Collaborating Political Parties (CPP) is said to have imposed his daughter, Ms. Telia J. Urey on the four-party partnership, a top executive of the main opposition Unity Party (UP), Amos Tweh has alleged.
In an interview with the local Prime FM on Thursday morning, Mr. Tweh, who is UP’s District 15 nominee, described the process announced by the CLPP that put Ms. Urey on the ticket of the group as “a Kangaroo arrangement”, thus sparking a crack in the ranks of the four-party CPP.
The definition of a Kangaroo arrangement is one that ignores recognized standards of law or justice, and often abuse of process.
The CLPP, which is currently chaired by the ALP leader, Mr. Benoni Urey, was formally established late last year to put up a single slate of candidstes in the subsequent elections. It include the main opposition Unity Party (UP) of former Vice President Joseph Boakai, the Alternative National Congress of Alexander Cummings, ALP’s Benoni Urey and Charles Brumskine’s Liberty Party.
On Wednesday, May 15, 2019, the CPP announced the endorsement of Ms. Telia Urey of the ALP to fill the vacant District #15 seat created by the recent death of former Representative Adolph Lawrence. Liberty Party’s Vice Chairman, Mr. Diarus Dillon was endorsed to represent the CPP in the Senatorial Bi-election to replace the late Senator Geraldine Doe-Sheriff on July 2, 2019.
Reading the statement on the endorsements, ANC Chairman, Senator Daniel Naatehn said:
“This endorsement is a demonstration of the collaborating parties’ ongoing efforts to further enhance cooperation, confidence building, and mutual respect as a basis for the consolidation of our individual strength, and capacity into a common purpose of building and sustaining our collaborative relationship.
“We, therefore, reaffirm our commitment to using these by-elections scheduled for July 2, 2019, to propagate the essence of our collaboration, and therefore, call on all partisans, supporters and the Liberian people to support the collaborating candidates,” he said.
The CPP’s leadership said the endorsement was based on both votes and concensus.
According to Sen. Nathan, they chose to put aside their egos and come together to produce one candidate for Representative and Senatorial Bi-elections.
Unity Party’s Youth Wing official, Mr. Belle told a live radio talk show on Thursday that both Ms. Urey and Mr. Tweh were invited to give brief overview of their platforms to the executive committee of the CPP, before the endorsements were done. He said Ms. Urey is a resident of District #15 and had voted in the area in three past national and Bi-elections.
However, Mr. Tweh, who used to be Deputy Internal Affairs Minister, has debunked the statement, claiming that he was never invited to the meeting and that Urey’s daughter was not a resident of District #15. In fact, he claimed that Telia Urey has been living in Ghana until just two weeks ago when she arrived in Liberia.
There has so far been no reaction from Ms. Urey nor her father, the ALP leader.
Another official of the Unity Party in District #15 also told the local Prime Fm phone-in talk show on Thursday, that there were “big hands using money to buy the slot.”