LIBERIAN PEOPLE’S PARTY

HEADQUARTERS: OLD ROAD CONGO TOWN

Email address:聽liberianpeoplesparty@gmail.com

0776491322/0886512558/0880819576               

A position statement of the Liberian People’s Party (LPP) and its various auxiliaries on the upcoming Second Round of the Presidential Elections delivered by the Chairman of the Liberian People’s Party (LPP) at the Headquarters of the Party in Congo Town, Montserrado County on Wednesday, October 25, 2023 at 11:00AM.

Fellow Liberians, the National Elections Commission (NEC) announced on Tuesday, October 24, 2023 that no presidential candidate attained votes of 50% plus one, as required by the Constitution of the Republic of Liberia. Therefore, the NEC does not have the percentage of votes required, to declare the winner of the presidential election. However, the results show that the Liberian electorates voted for two of the twenty presidential candidates, virtually on an equal basis. The two presidential candidates are from the current ruling party, the Coalition for Democratic Change (CDC) and the former ruling party, Unity Party (UP). The Liberian people will be going to the polls again to vote for the two remaining presidential candidates, in order for the NEC to declare the winner of the presidential election. We were brutally critical of these two parties that are going into the final round during the campaign based on their records of governance.

Despite our critical views of the two parties preferred by the Liberian voters, our party, the Liberian People’s Party (LPP) must make a decision, whether to tell our partisans to remain neutral or to choose one of the candidates. Based on broad consultations conducted with our partisans and members of the various auxiliary groups in Liberia and the diaspora that supported our presidential candidate, Tiawan Saye Gongloe and his running-mate, Dr. Emmanuel K. Urey Yarkpawolo, we have decided to support one of the candidates in the presidential election. It was difficult to reach this decision because we ran a campaign based on a platform for the transformation of Liberia into a better country. Our platform was summarized into what we refer to as the ten-point agenda for a better Liberia. Among other things, the ten-point agenda for a better Liberia calls for strengthening the rule of law, combatting corruption beginning with publication of assets and salaries of government officials, conducting quarterly lifestyle audits, dismissing and prosecuting those found to be corrupt; taking bold and measurable steps to provide free, compulsory and quality education to Liberian children from kindergarten to 12 grade; eliminating adult illiteracy and providing technical and vocational education to high school dropouts and graduates in order to prepare them for employment. Our platform also provides for improving our health sector and making all government hospitals and clinics freely accessible to pregnant women, children under the age of five and all Liberians at age 65 years and above; mechanizing rice production throughout Liberia and establishing public works stations in the fifteen counties to keep the highways and farm to market roads maintained throughout the year, while gradually paving them as well as giving tax incentives to investors for companies that locate their factories fifty miles away from Monrovia. Our determination, as a party, to transform Liberia is symbolized by the broom, the symbol of the Liberian People’s Party (LPP). However, we were told by the Liberian people that our platform and our presidential candidate were good, but this was not our time.

We are choosing one of the parties based on our expectation that the party that we choose to support will do the following in the first hundred (100) days of its administration:

1) Take measurable steps to improve the rule of law, through strengthening law enforcement and the independence of the judiciary;

2) Publish the asset declarations of all officials of government along with their salaries and benefits;

3) Increase the salaries of civil servants including police officers, nurses, military and paramilitary, teachers, janitors, etc.

• Begin quarterly lifestyle audits of officials of government in the Executive Branch.
• Take steps towards the investigation of all sanctioned officials in government with the assistance of the US Government.
• Take steps towards the establishment of a War and Economic Crimes Court.

• Increase the budget percentage to begin mechanized agriculture; and increase percentage for education, agriculture and health to be at least 15 percent each in the 2024 budget and to put public works stations in the fifteen counties in order to improve the freedom of movement during the rainy season.

We hereby place on notice the party that we are declaring support for today, that upon its failure to meet these expectations, we will be the first to condemn and criticize them.

Fellow Liberians, partisans, supporters, and well-wishers of Liberia, today we are faced with an extremely difficult choice between two parties that were fiercely criticized by our partisans and supporters at home and abroad. From the broad consultations that we have conducted among our partisans and supporters at home and abroad as well as our conclusion that the party (CDC) in power placed Liberia in a virtual intensive care unit, we hereby declare that our party will support, the only opposition (UP) that was chosen by the Liberian people, to compete with the ruling party, (CDC).

We call on our partisans to go out to campaign and vote for the Unity Party and to ensure that the Unity Party wins this second round of the 2023 Presidential Election.

Government is a place to serve, not to steal!

A Better Liberia is possible!!!!!

I Thank You.