A Patriot’s Diary with Ekena Wesley
In politics, while it is not all the noise in the marketplace that counts, some certainly should not be treated lightly. The politics of the small West African nation is replete with chicanery, shenanigans, and gross uncertainty.
Surely, politics remains the art of inexactitude. Some call it the art of the possible. Whatever way the pendulum swings would depend on the role of the master chess player in the game.
When the now fragile Collaborating Political Party (CPP) became embroiled in the tentacles of showmanship, entitlement, and the craze of power drunkenness, CDCians saw reason to celebrate. Gush! Little did they realize that political parties as human institutions are not crisis-free.
A constituent member of the Coalition for Democratic Change (CDC) is seemingly on the tenterhooks. The National Patriotic Party of the former dictator, Charles Taylor is not happy about how the party was treated following the 2017 general and presidential elections in Liberia. They are laying their claim squarely at the doorsteps of President George Weah’s Congress for Democratic Change for what they believe is an unfair deal.
Indeed NPP has a point! Their party’s militants and political foot soldiers were in the trenches, working feverishly to win hearts and minds. Of course, their hard work yielded favorable outcomes which translated into the win for the Coalition government that was in the wilderness for 12 years.
Most often than not those who clamor for power often become found wanting when the opportunity avails itself. But Weah Congress for Democratic Change sought to give constituent parties an unfair deal in terms of who gets what as the ultimate to the capture of political power.
Amid the lack of even-handedness in the allocation of jobs, NPP stalwart, Comrade Randolph Cooper could not mince his words. He expressed frustration over the plight of their supporters and former NPFL loyalists who have become abandoned due to the unequal distribution of jobs.
Cooper said it is unthinkable that those brave men and women who sacrificed sweat and blood to bring CDC to power have simply been reduced to beggars. Randolph Cooper decried how some executives have been bending backward and forward to subsidize the survival of their supporters.
Moving forward, Cooper averred, the imperative is to learn from the sad mistakes of the past as a basis for renewing a potential vigor for the future. Randolph Cooper, who it seems is leaning toward the James Biney faction of the National Patriotic Party wants a careful review of whatever the framework deal that brought all the parties together with a view to ensuring fair and equal allocation of jobs to constituent members of the Coalition for Democratic Change. How that translates into realistic dividends will remain to be seen as the clock ticks.
