LIBERIA – A Liberian political commentator is calling on the opposition community to support Mr. Alexander B. Cummings in the eagerly awaiting 2023 general and presidential elections. Mr. Cummings is the standard bearer of a fractured opposition Collaborating Political Parties (CPP), comprised of two political parties.
The two parties include the Alternative National Congress (ANC) which Cummings is the political leader, and the Liberty Party (LP). Cummings will contest against President Goerge Weah on CPP’s ticket in the 2023 presidential election.
Mr. Matthew Nyanplu in his Facebook post yesterday said: “I think the opposition in Liberia should rally around Alexander Cummings to defeat George Weah with real policy solutions…”
Nyanplu, also a journalist, and a critic of President George Manneh Weah and Weah’s party, the Coalition for Democratic Change (CDC), did not state a reason for his statement or post.
On numerous occasions, Nyanplu, especially on Facebook wrote posts strongly criticizing President Weah for poor leadership. He has frowned on Weah’s poor approach to fighting corruption in Liberia.
He has never minced his words against President Weah…
Nyanplu a Liberian scholar who currently resides in the US recently posted on Facebook saying: “If you elect George Weah in 2023 to lead the country, we patriots will consider you an enemy of the Liberian people. You will doom the people to years of economic hardship and political calamity from which the country will not recover in a generation or more.”
“We do not hate George Weah as his fanatics retort, nor his officials. His conduct since 2018 has demonstrated to us that he is more than a governance disaster. He belongs in the private sphere with the largesse and bootlicking he needs to massage his ego…that is all Weah needs. He does not need our Presidency. It is only a means to the easy wealth he enjoys along with his fixers.”
“Those who still advocate Weah’s leadership after all the disasters we have witnessed over these last five years, do so, as we said before in 2017 and will still do in 2023, for easy access to easily looted, and easily plundered public wealth.”
“I am also of the belief and I implore you, a consecutive second term has not helped Liberia per our recent history, and we should not experiment with it with Weah however dejure constitutional it may be. Those elected must exit after one term and fight to earn the confidence of the people to return. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf’s second term was worse than her first.”
“Weah should not get a second term by default.
Everyone who is fortunate to become President as we consolidate democracy in Liberia must do so for one term. There is a “don’t care spirit” that sets in after a second term is secured. The effects are retrogressive. Weah should not get a second term.”
“Fellow Liberians, we must make sure of that.”
Matthew is a staunch supporter of the former ruling Unity Party, and also supports the UP’s standard bearer, former Vice President Joseph Nyuma Boakai…
Some political pundits who spoke to Smart News said Matthew’s post could cause serious political embarrassment to Boakai and the UP.
Yes, a good idea: a one 5-year term only for the Presidency. And yes, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf should have never been given a second term. She used that last term to revenge and allow her family members and friends to do whatever they pleased with the resources of the country, knowing that she no longer needed the people’s votes which she was so furiously begging for during her first and second campaigns for the Presidency. Given the clueless, incompetent and corrupt Weah regime another term after all he and his corrupt and inept officials have done to the country for the past five long years will be the end of Liberia as we know it! The only tragedy is that the fractured opposition may go into the 2023 elections even more divided than ever, thereby giving Weah and the equally corrupt and incompetent national elections commission the space and environment to at least try to, if not truly rig or manipulate the elections to remain in power.