Liberia: Boakai Running Away from Presidential Debate?

In a surprising move, former Vice President Joseph Boakai has announced that he will not participate in any presidential debate unless his main rival, President Weah, is a participant.

Boakai, who lost to Weah in the 2017 election, made this decision as the President's campaign team has remained mute as to whether the President will participate in a presidential debate or not.

“I challenge President Weah to a presidential debate on the issues. [But] I will not attend any debate that Weah is not at,” Boakai said yesterday during a radio interview. 

It is unclear why Weah may not want to participate in a presidential debate, but if that happened, it could be a repeat of 2017 when, as the leading opposition candidate, he refused to debate anyone. He even went as far as mocking the impact of debates on the lives of Liberians. 

Critics then argued that the President's decision to skip the 2017 debate, which was a defining moment in Liberia's recent political history, suggested his unwillingness to face tough questioning on policy matters as he would badly flunk.

On the other hand, supporters of Weah had repeatedly argued since then that direct engagement with the electorate is more efficient than debate.  They contended that the traditional Liberian political landscape did not require formal debates and that Weah's popularity among the masses speaks for itself.

But If Boakai also follows through with his threat, the 2023 presidential debate, which is expected to serve as a platform for candidates to debate policy about issues, will be left with several wildcard presidential candidates, including Alexander Cummings, Dr. Clarence Moniba, and Tiawan Gongloe. 

Boakai, according to analysts, may also want to avoid debating to avoid the blunders he made in 2017  when he was questioned about bad governance by the Unity Party and Sirleaf-led government.

As the sitting Vice President then, he tried to distance himself from the shortcomings of President Sirleaf's government who was his boss. 

During that debate, he famously said that he was a race car parked in a garage — suggesting that he had little influence over the government's policy direction.

However, the Unity Party, which Boakai now leads as an opposition party, is now claiming some of the achievements of the Sirleaf government in its bid to unseat Weah.

Boakai's latest remark in the views of some of his critics is a strategic maneuver aimed at exploiting Weah's perceived reluctance to engage in unscripted discussions. 

They claimed Boakai also wants to position in the minds of the public that he is a candidate committed to public discussion even though he is refusing to debate other candidates to avoid questioning the Unity Party governance ruling. 

Boakai's camp however contends that his discussion is rooted in principles of fairness and equal opportunity. They argue that a presidential debate without the incumbent president's presence could create an unlevel playing field, potentially skewing the public's perception of the candidate's abilities and policies. 

Meanwhile, Boakai has also disclosed that his decision to concede defeat in the 2017 election was for the sake of peace but insists that he was cheated.

He revealed that Benoni Urey, his former political ally, has called on him to protest against the election result but turned down the offer. 

Boakai, who did not provide any evidence to back up his claim against Urey, noted that he was offered thousands of protesters to take to the streets in opposition to the election result, which he says he rejected as a result of his nonviolence belief.

“Mr. Urey told me we can put 15 thousand people in the street. I wasn’t going to put people in the street to harm people,” Boakai said. “I couldn’t have allowed people to die because of me. Believe me, even if I had taken the country by now I wouldn’t be alive.”

“I think by now Liberians are convinced that the decision they made wasn’t the right decision and they are ready to correct it. I felt cheated, I felt there was a lot of violation at that time but that was the feeling of the young people,” he added. 

Boakai’s remarks about Urey, with whom he had fallen out, came in response to questions from the host about his stance on ensuring a peaceful electoral process and his comments on the phrase “No one man has a monopoly over violence.”

He also claimed that “Liberians’ realization” that their decision in 2017 was a “mistake” has fuelled his resolve to provide the leadership that the county deserves.

He claimed that his presidential quest is to provide leadership  that will make the country prosperous as he asserted that he has always “been blessed and does not associate himself with corruption or the embezzlement of government funds, unlike many other politicians.”

If elected President, Boakai pledged to address key issues such as sanitation, accessibility of roads for travel, the economy, and improvements in the healthcare sector.