-Irregularities prompt Rerun in Montserrado District #15 By-election in 10 days
The NEC Independent Hearing Chambers has ruled that ballots in 20 quarantined polling places in the Montserrado County District #15 By-election was tampered with, ordering a rerun at those centers, but the ruling Coalition for Democratic Change (CDC) has objected to the ruling.
The 20 polling places amount to six precincts and the Head of the Chambers, Mauna Ville on Wednesday ordered a rerun.
But shortly after the ruling, lawyers of the CDC and the Party’s Chairman Mulbah Morlu challenged the decision of the chief Hearings officer and said they would file a challenge to the NEC Board of Commissioners.
The Lawyer for the CDC candidate Abu Kamara said the complainantss failed to prove their case, with exception to the second part that calls for a rerun of the affected polling places.
All Liberian Party (ALP) Representative candidate, Telia Urey, daughter of opposition leader Banoni Urey and Bishop Siebo Frank filed a complaint after the District’s By-election on July 29 against NEC for “several irregularities”.
They claimed that that this amounted to “fraud”.
Ms. Urey welcomed the ruling for a rerun, but said a rerun will have the same irregularities repeated, if NEC’s chief Data Analyst remains in that position. Her ticket is being backed by the four-part opposition Collaborating Political Parties, which include the former ruling Unity Party, the ANC and the LP.
The Head of the NEC Hearing Chambers ruled that the petitioners, led by lead Counsel Lavala Supuwood, failed to prove their allegations against the Commission.
Cllr. Ville said the Hearing Chambers believes that the quarantined ballots in the possession of the Commission could have been tempered with considering that the Director of the NEC Data Center failed to give exact time and date the ballots where quarantined and how did candidate Abu Kamara’s total number of votes got reduced. The Hearing Chamber thinks the ballots are believed to have been tempered with at the NEC Headquarters after or before they were ordered quarantined by the NEC.
It was on this basis, that the NEC Hearing Officer called for a rerun and not a recount of the affected places within 10 days beginning August 14, 2019—the date of his ruling.
The impressive performance of Telia and the opposition in the Montserrado previous stronghold of President George Weah’s CDC appears to be making the ruling party jittery about their chances in going to a rerun polls.
It has been reported that in protest against the government due to rising economic hardship, various reports of corruption and violations of the constitutions, any rerun will see a repeat of the protest votes on July 29 in the first ballot.