Former President John Mahama appears to have taken a swipe at his critics following the flak he received over the botched Kenya elections after arriving in Liberia, where he leads the ECOWAS observer mission to monitor the country’s election.
Upon arrival in Monrovia Thursday, Mahama told the Liberian media that he and the team will do everything in their power to ensure smooth elections but the greater responsibility lies on the citizenry to protect their democracy.
“We are ready to work to ensure that the people of Liberia have a successful, free and fair election. The principal responsibility for good election is on the people themselves, how they participate in the process, how smooth the process will be and the work done by the electoral commission.
“For us as election observers, we are here to make the people of Liberia know that the whole world is watching you and you must get this right. Liberia is one of Africa oldest democracies and we expect that Liberia would live up to expectation in terms of this elections. We are hoping that everyone will participate so that things will go well. We will do our part, the election observers are not magicians. It will take the collaboration of the Liberian people to make this election successful but we are willing to work with you to show the world that Liberia has risen to the occasion of democracy,” Mahama said.
The general elections will be held on October 10, 2017. Voters will elect a new President and members of the House of representative.
The President is elected using the two-round system, whilst the 73 members of the House of Representatives are elected by first-past-the-post voting in single-member constituencies.
President Ellen Sirleaf is not contesting in the polls.
Below is the list of presidential hopefuls
- Joseph Boakai, vice-president since January 2006.
- Charles Brumskine, leader of the Liberty Party and former President Pro Temp of the Senate[5]
- MacDella Cooper, philanthropist
- Alexander B. Cummings, former Executive Vice President and Chief Administrative Officer of Coca-Cola
- Prince Johnson, former rebel leader
- Joseph Mills Jones, leader of the Movement for Economic Empowerment and former Governor of the Central Bank of Liberia
- Richard Miller, businessman
- Benoni Urey, businessman
- George Weah, former footballer who was defeated by Ellen Johnson Sirleaf in the 2005 election,
- MacDonald A. Wento, United People’s Party
- Jeremiah Whapoe, businessman
Source: starrfmonline
