BUCHANAN, GRAND BASSA COUNTY – As campaigns continue ahead of the 10 October 2023 elections, the Director of the sea Port of Buchanan, Siokin Civicus Barsi-Giah, has predicted a landslide for incumbent President George Weah.
In an exclusive interview on Wednesday, 30 August 2023, Barsi-Giah told Smart News Liberia (SNL) in the port city of Buchanan that Weah and his running-mate Jewel Howard-Taylor will win the ensuing presidential election landslide in the first round.
Asked what are the chances of the incumbent, in a rather crowded field of presidential candidates, Barsi-Giah, a communication specialist and leadership expert, averred that President Weah’s chances are huge, indicating that the Liberian leader will win a first-round victory.
“He’s going to win, and he’s going to win on one ballot. He has a chance to one ballot, Barsi-Giah stated.”
He added: “George Weah and Jewel Howard-Taylor, they’re going to win on one ballot. I will be blunt here; what is missing from me is that George Weah’s numbers, where they will be coming from – the counties he will be dominating, the figures he will be dominating with, and where the balance plus ones would be coming from, I need to put that on the table because that’s my job to tell you he’s going to beat you from these places but this is the trump card for the plus one. I need to do that for you, and I haven’t completed that. But for the one ballot and a win, that’s nothing to talk about now. We’re on a bluff now we’re just chilling, but we’ve got not to be complacent because this man is a good man.”
He maintained that Weah’s chances of winning the opposition candidates are high, saying; the President has a very huge chance of winning a landslide.
However, Barsi-Giah, who said he’s not blasphemous and that he’s known by President Weah to be blunt and an individual who says it as it is, pointed out that the Liberian leader cannot be complacent.
“As a matter of fact, there is nobody more popular than the people. The people are always the popular people. So they will decide who to vote. So your popularity lies in them. That’s why you need to go to them. So rain and shine we need to get out there, and he agreed to those conversations – and that’s why you see he’s marvelously walking around with no level of complacency. The President is hitting the ground running in every way,” he emphasized.
He continued: “You see him in the rain? Yes, that is what we’re doing. You can’t sit at home. You’ve got to showcase [that] you want a job. You don’t have a job. You are about to lose your job. So you can’t sit somewhere and feel happy,” said Barsi-Giah, who noted that be as it may, no other candidate contesting the presidency is in a better position to win the 10 October polls than Weah.
While cataloging President Weah’s achievements among which he named as the rehabilitation and construction of roads and construction of hospitals, for which the sea Port of Buchanan Director believes the Liberian leader deserves a second term mandate from Liberians to continue from where he’s stopped, Barsi-Giah stated that the incumbent is a unique character endowed with what he called a humorous style of leadership, which he said many of his competitors in the presidential race lack.
“You see, this man is unique. There is a style of leadership most of us may not know. I know because I studied that one. It’s called the humorous style of leadership, where people figure out that I am so humorous, wherein people in this part of the world would think you’re funny, you’re making fun on the job, and you’re not serious. But it a good style of leadership that falls under the charismatic formula, where you get to places and behave like the people, work like the people, imitate the people,” he noted, adding; “This is the style of leadership most leaders in Liberia don’t have – and this is where his strength and capacity is. He has a great intuition. He has a retentive memory. Most leaders here don’t have it.”
Barsi-Giah, who heads the George Weah Movement, a political action group in support of President Weah’s re-election bid, used the occasion to disclose that he and his followers in Grand Bassa County are vigorously campaigning to ensure a first-round victory for the ruling party.
Grand Bassa County is a place where the politics of family or brand name and legacy of forebears is prevalent, and the Buchanan Port Director is of the belief that his surname is playing a significant role in the campaign for Weah to bag a huge chunk of votes from the Liberian west central region of Grand Bassa.
He is the son of a prominent Bassa opinion leader, politician and acclaimed Liberian revolutionary, the late Morris Nahndi Barsi-Giah, Sr., who formerly served Grand Bassa County in the House of Representatives, as the august body’s chair on Public Works for years.
Barsi-Giah disclosed that he and members of the George Weah Movement are heavily reliant on the legacy contained in his surname and are making gains in their campaign to have Bassa citizens elect Weah for a second six-year term.
“My name Barsi-Giah is a brand name. It’s a marketable name. It’s a sellable name,” he stated while bragging that his surname associates with revolutionary happenings, as far as Grand Bassa County’s history is concerned.
Contrary to the strategy of other politicians, who are campaigning in Bassa County using the English language, which most locals, especially the elderly in the area hardly understand, Barsi-Giah stated that he’s familiar with his mother tongue and he fluently speaks the Bassa vernacular while daily crusading along with hundreds of his followers into communities, particularly within the capital city, Buchanan, campaigning for the re-election of President Weah.
