Author: tiffjpf

“The ignorance of one voter in a Democracy impairs the security of all.”

                                                                                   John F. Kennedy

By

J. Patrick Flomo

Columbus, OH.

614 707 3636

Midterm elections in democratic societies constitute a verdict rendered by the electorate on the performance of the executive during his or her first half of the constitutional term of office.  The December 8, 2020 midterm election was a referendum on the Weah Presidency, and was clearly a resounding shellacking for the ruling party, the CDC.  While it is true that we do not have a sophisticated polling system in Liberia to give us some prognostication of what is to come before election day, we had the sense that the December 8 election results would not be a surprise.   And as it turns out, CDC went down in defeat. I do not think CDC leadership was surprised either. 

After three years of incompetent leadership, a high degree of kleptocracy, economic hardship for the masses, and other governmental maleficence, the election result speaks volumes about the level of political sophistication of the Liberian electorates. They have come a long way despite the nation’s poor civic education. While the economic conditions have worsened for the masses in the past three years, the top political leaders have amassed unprecedented level of wealth—not from the sweat of their brow, but from government coffers.  The electorate took note and expressed a negative view of the Weah government.  For example, for CDC to lose the senatorial races in Bong County and Montserrado County (two traditional political bastions for CDC), indicates that the party is in shark-infested political waters as we move toward the 2023 general elections.

The sad reality is that the defeat of CDC will not bring economic relief to the masses nor re-engineer the executive to be productive and efficient.  Why? Because we do not have a divided government and there is no single viable opposition party that is strong enough to bring forth legislation that can benefit the masses.    As a result, the dire economic condition of the masses, the unprecedented level of kleptocracy, the unsolved murders of civil servants (Albert Peters, Gifty Lama, and George F. Fanbutu all of LRA) investigating the government and other maleficence will continue well into the next government and beyond.  

CDC still has an opportunity to alter its precarious political path. But first, it has to purge its catatonic political state of mind by exercising catharsis.  And second, regenerate. To assure the citizenry that CDC has repented for its political sins of incompetency and kleptocracy, and is born-again with a renewed capacity to governor effectively, the CDC has to recruit qualified technocrats (not politicians) from across a wide spectrum (at home and in the Diasporas) who will scientifically diagnose the Republic’s illness and recommend the best scientific solutions to cure incompetency, mitigate corruption, and address other societal illnesses. They will put forward economic and social policies that will benefit the masses.  Does the party have the political acumen or the willpower to so? I think not. 

 The so-called Collaborating Political Parties’ (CPP) victory in the midterm election may turn out to be a political conundrum (leadership ego and desire for power) as we move toward the 2023 general election because its constitution is not built on a unified foundation.  In fact, it may be CDC’s path to recovery because the political lava within the CPP is beginning to bubble; it is most likely to erupt as we move closer to the general election.   Is CDC intelligent enough to capitalize on the CPP’s political maelstrom? I think not.

To stop CDC from a second presidential victory, and most specially to safeguard the Republic from sliding down further into a political purgatory, CPP has to do two things: first, disband now and let each political party begin to build grassroots political movements to compete in the 2023 general elections; second, change the collaborating concept to solidarity and select Mr. Dillion, who has now become a political superstar in Liberia as the presidential candidate.  Without these two formulas, CDC is most likely to win a second term and for certain Liberia is doomed.  

The defeat of the referendum (especially Dual Citizenship) in the midterm election was due to poor communication and education of the general public and the electorate by the government and other proponents.  For us in the Diasporas (especially those who still carry full Liberian citizenship), the question of dual citizenship is of paramount importance.  We need to review what went wrong and regenerate a strategy for the 2023 general elections.  As to the broader question of the general referendum, the government was not a disinterested party, and as a result it was not in its interest to advocate its passage.  We need a disinterested party to educate the general public on the importance of passing these referenda, especially those items dealing with legislative and executive terms of office and legislature salaries.  

Election is the free exercise of constitutional power by the people in a Democracy to elect a government that will help improve their lives. For eight decades, the masses of Liberia have not experienced the benefits of this theory.  Will the 2023 elections become our redemption?  I hope so.  The preamble to our constitution begins with “WE THE PEOPLE OF THE REOUBLIC OF LIBERIA…”  and with this phrase, I believe we have the rights and power to do so.  Let’s not squander this awesome power.  As Lincoln said, “The ballot is stronger than the bullet.”

By
J. Patrick Flomo
jpflomo@outlook.com
614-707-3636

In the past 12 years, Liberia did upend the male-dominated political hegemony in black Africa by electing the first woman president on the continent. In the 2017 elections, the Liberian people once again changed the political topography of black Africa by electing a former professional soccer star as president, the first in black Africa.

Liberia has, in the past three scores and ten, exercised one democratic transfer of power — the transfer of power from President Edwin Barclay to President-elect William V.S. Tubman in 1944 when Liberia was almost a century old. The near-flawless 2017 election has provided the opportunity for the Liberian people to exercise the norm of Republican government — the orderly and peaceful transfer of power for a second time. In the context of Liberia’s cosmopolitanism and level of sophistication in the democratic electoral process, the conduct of this election (free of violence and voter fraud) can be viewed as Liberia’s magnum opus election of the 21st century.

The 2017 election was like a symphony performed with the ultimate dulcet of harmonic strings. The principal players, the Liberian people, exercised their constitutional rights to vote (the supreme source of power in a Republican government) with dignity and style, unlike what the world saw in the recent Kenya elections. The feeling was that this election has ushered in a new dawn of a democratic nurturing process for Liberia. For example, the battleground for competition was a level playing field for all the competitors. The incumbent government’s neutrality in this election is a remarkable political milestone relative to Africans (e.g., Kenya) and other totalitarian governments (e.g., Russia) that use the power of government to silence the opposition.

While the peaceful nature of the election and the pending orderly transfer of power to a new government is a milestone in Liberia’s recent history, the newly president-elect is, I think, not up to the task of the monumental challenges that face Liberia. He is not a student of Liberia’s structural endemic political, social, and economic institutionalized system, nor does he have the intellectual discipline or governing acumen to grapple with the plethora of elephantine problems of poverty, poor educational system, astronomical unemployment and underemployment, very poor healthcare system, the endemic and insidious nature of corruption (something that has become part of our DNA), the monopolization of the domestic economy by Lebanese and other foreign nationals, gross economic injustice (the pending anarchy), and infrastructure underdevelopment (electricity, water, roads). The danger here is that the learning curve for anyone in the epicenter of this whirling state of challenges is extremely short and the arc of the looming problems is fast approaching a crisis of cosmic proportions.

Moving forward, the Liberian people demand to know how the president-elect is going to address these chronic problems that are inhibiting the capacity of Liberia, a country rich in natural resources and human capital, to improve the lives of its 3.5 million people. Since the president-elect was not challenged to articulate his position on these issues during the campaign, he now should do so. The people should insist that this be his first act as president. Now that we have elected a new president whose resume speaks far less about his knowledge of how government and institutions work, we have to work with him to move Liberia forward. We know that modernity in Liberia has been at a very slow pace for decades. To accelerate progress (under this new administration) toward better education, healthcare, job training and job creation, economic justice, and to fight against the endemic of corruption, we must vigorously challenge the government and hold the three branches of government accountable when they fail to deliver.

The 2017 election marks a watershed moment in the history of Liberian democracy. And, it has set Liberia on a path to a maturing political process. A template has now been created and the hope is that Liberian political academicians will synthesize it and vacuum out the fog so that the symphony of the next election will sound like Beethoven’s Ode to Joy. We must regard this template as our manifest destiny to expand constitutional democracy across the African continent.

 

 

 

By

Patrick Flomo

Columbus, Ohio. USA

South Sudan has come to epitomize this vexing question regarding black Africa: Are Blacks Capable of Self-Rule? South Sudan, the newest black African state, has imploded and spiraled into the abyss of an incomprehensible chaos since independence in 2011. The civil strife that has engulfed and set the state aflame is not being waged over political ideological differences or over policy differences on how to develop the country. It is being waged on who should be president. Thanks to their self-aggrandizement and greed for power, two narcissists — former Vice President Riek Machark and President Salva Kiir —have squandered a precious chance to build a society of equal opportunity, equality under the law, liberty, and freedom.

After 22 years of civil war for independence that left nearly 2 million people dead, South Sudan gained independence in 2011. The people of South Sudan and the international community were elated with the birth of this new nation. Optimism and hope filled the hearts and souls of South Sudanese for self-rule and a better life. However, jubilation and optimism turned into sorrow and disillusionment as leaders turned their guns on each other, plunging the new nation into fire and brimstone. It is estimated that this senseless civil war has taken more than 50,000 lives and internally displaced millions. South Sudan is now at the precipice of Armageddon. This is a sad state of affairs for black rule in the 21^st century.   This squandered opportunity has awakened the age-old question about Black Self-Rule that has plagued black Africa for the past sixty decades.