The National Elections Commission (NEC) has declared that it will not extend beyond its 24September 2021 deadline, the candidate nomination process of the pending by-elections slated to be held in Bomi, Bong, Nimba and Grand Gedeh Counties.
Giving updates on the impending by-elections Monday, NEC Chairperson Davidetta Browne-Lansanah disclosed that the Commission’s Nomination Team reports that as of 16 September 2021, 10 political parties had picked up nomination packages.
She named political parties that have picked up nomination packages from the NEC, as the Liberia National Union (LINU), Liberia Transformation Party (LTP), the ruling Coalition for Democratic Change (CDC), People’s Unification Party (PUP), and businessman cum politician Simeon Freemans’ Movement for Progressive Change (MPC).
The rest are: Rainbow Alliance (RA), Movement for One Liberia (MOL), the crisis-prone Collaborating Political Parties (CPP), United People’s Party (UPP), and former warlord, now Senator of Nimba County, Prince Johnson’s Movement for Democracy and Reconstruction (MDR).
Madam Browne-Lansanah said independent aspirants that have picked up nomination packages include five individuals in Bomi, with one being female; Nimba, two male aspirants; in Bong, which has the highest number of aspirants so far, seven individuals, in an all-male affairs, have picked up nomination packages; while in Grand Gedeh, it’s just one male aspirant.
According to the NEC boss, the total number of political parties and independent aspirants, who have so far received nomination packages, is 25, out of which she said there is just a single individual, an independent aspirant from Bomi County, who is the only person to have now returned the nomination package to the NEC’s Nomination Center.
The Commission says the Candidate Nomination process which began on 13 September 2021, will end on Friday, 24September 2021.
Meanwhile, the NEC is calling on all aspirants who have received nomination packages to return same to the Commission’s Candidate Nomination Center on 9th and 10th Streets on or before its 24September 2021 deadline for the Candidate Nomination Exercise.
The Commission is also encouraging those desirous of contesting any of the four by-elections to pick up candidate nomination packages, complete same and return them before the deadline of the exercise.
