By Olando Testimony Zeongar
MONROVIA – Former Deputy Presidential Press Secretary, Mr. Abel Nyumah Plackie, has made the call for supporters of the 2023 presidential quest of ex-Vice President and Standard Bearer of Unity Party, Ambassador Joseph Nyuma Boakai (JNB), to desist from mudslinging the political leader of the opposition Alternative National Congress (ANC), and instead, in their political attacks, target incumbent President George Weah.
Later this year on 10 October, Liberians are poised to go to the polls in the country’s general and presidential elections to elect a president, vice president, and a horde of legislators into Liberia’s bicameral Legislature; the Liberian Senate and the House of Representatives respectively.
Incumbent President Weah and his CDC party are seeking reelection against droves of a disunited opposition bloc comprising tons of political parties and politicians, including Mr. Cummings and former VP Boakai.
Plackie, who served as deputy press secretary during the reign of former President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, to whom Boakai served as vice president for 12 years, is of the opinion that the UP Standard Bearer is favored to be Liberia’s next president, and that he would need the support of others within the opposition bloc to win, indicating that therefore, there’s no need for JNB’s supporters to antagonize Cummings and leaders of other opposition political institutions.
The former deputy presidential press secretary took to social media Monday and wrote: “In as much JNB has been favored, we need everyone’s support to win; stop badmouthing ABC, and other opposition leaders. Weah should be our target!”
Plackie’s call for supporters of Boakai to cease attacking Cummings politically, and to just aimed their political atomic ballistic missiles at Weah only, comes amid unceasing war of words between rival supporters of both men, dating back to the heydays of the now disintegrated Collaborating Political Parties (CPP), when heated leadership rivalry ensued between the pair.
Political pundits are of the belief that the power struggle between Boakai and Cummings, as to who would have headed the CPP’s ticket as a presidential candidate and who would have conceded to the other as vice presidential running-mate, is the main reason that led to the crumbling of the then four-constituent-member Collaborating Political Parties.
Prior to the CPP crumbling, it comprised the former ruling Unity Party of ex-Veep Boakai; Benoni Urey’s All Liberian Party (ALP); Liberty Party (LP) of fallen Liberian politician, Charles Brumskine; and the Alternative National Congress (ANC) of Alex Cummings.
The CPP, which was organized amid heightened expectation as the opposition bloc’s best alternative to ousting from power and making the incumbent Weah a one-term president following the 10 October presidential election, later sunk in incessant internal wranglings, chief among which was the Collaboration’s Framework Document alleged alteration case.
Last year, the CPP’s internal wrangling reached its zenith, when Cummings, after being accused by Urey, for allegedly altering the Collaboration’s Framework Document, was taken to court on multiple charges including forgery.
Although the mater was later thrown out of court, while the court proceedings were ongoing, two CPP constituent member parties, the ALP and UP withdrew their memberships, leaving the Collaboration lamed, with just the ALP and a faction of the leadership crisis prone Liberty Party headed by embattled Chairman Musa Bility, holding on with ANC’s Cummings to run the Collaborating Political Parties.
