Liberia: CPP Resurges with Amended Framework Document

The Alternative National Congress of Alexander Cummings has reaffirmed its collaboration with the Musa Bility’s faction of the Liberty Party with the relaunch of the Collaborative Political Party framework document.

At the event, which was held at Bility’s Liberty Party headquarters, Cummings expressed joy that the political collaboration is on course, saying it “would rally the support of the majority of the voting population to vote President George Weah out of office through a one-round poll.”

Cummings after the event became the standard bearer of the CPP and will decide on who to choose as his vice standard bearer for the collaboration ticket.

“I want to say to you, the Liberian people, that we are presenting this document to you. You, the Liberian people, you have clamored and you wanted us to stick together,”  he told his supporters and sympathizers gracing the occasion. “You wanted a united opposition and today, together with the Liberty Party (LP) and the other parties that will join us; we will work every day to deliver a united opposition so we can make President Weah a one-term president.”

The contents of the revised framework document are yet to be made public but Cummings assured that the document is now written in such a way that all other political parties feel welcome to associate with the CPP.

However, Cummings boasted that his agenda promises a far better future for all Liberians and it is possible under CPP leadership which is in the best interest of the country.

“No more must a Liberian go to bed hungry. No more must our children go to inadequate schools. No more must we allow people to come and steal from us. Let me say to you in this public manner, if you are supporting us, the CPP; if you are supporting me, Cummings, because you want a chance to come and chop Liberian people’s money, we are not for you. We are a party and a group of Liberians who want to work together and change our country so that every Liberian child can have the opportunity to be whatever he or she wants to be in life.”

The collaboration comes as Senator Nyonblee Karnga-Lawrence of Grand Bassa County accused Cummings of instigative division in the Liberty Party and that collaboration action “was illegal and would not go unchallenged.”

Lawrence,  who is the political leader of the Liberty Party, disclosed that the 2021 Constitution of the Party grants her the right to oversee such a decision.

It can be recalled that on February 21, four political parties, including the immediate former ruling Unity Party (UP) of former Vice President Joseph Nuymah Boakai, the All Liberian Party (ALP) of Benoni Wilfred Urey, the Liberty Party (LP) and the Alternative National Congress (ANC) of Cummings formed a collaboration and named it the Collaborating Political Parties (CPP).

The CPP was a formidable force in the mid-term Special Senatorial Elections held on December 20, 2020. The CPP upset President Weah’s ruling Coalition for Democratic Change by winning more Senate seats across the country, with the hope that the governance of the country could have taken a new dynamism, reliant on the fact that the Legislature, mainly the House of Senate, is now predominantly opposition-based.

Following disagreements on who would become the standard bearer for the CPP — a decision that should have been made at the CPP primaries, since both Cummings and Boakai were contesting for the post — the CPP crumbled due to framework tampering allegations emerging from Benoni Urey.

Cummings was taken to court and tried for over seven months and was eventually found not guilty of the wrongdoing he was accused of. 

Urey’s ALP was the first party to leave the collaboration, followed by Boakai’s Unity Party and, later on, the Karngar-Lawrence’s Liberty Party. 

Meanwhile, Bility in his remark said that Liberia has come a long way since its declaration of independence but has nothing much to show in terms of national unification and infrastructural developments as seen in other countries in Africa that are far younger in independence than Liberia, which is 175 years now.

“We want to tell you that the CPP is alive and we want to assure you that for this country the CPP is the only option that the opposition has. Even those who were jumping out of the CPP, from the time they left up to today, have never taken a concrete step to form any form of unity,” Bility told the audience gathered at his Liberty Party headquarters in Sinkor.

“We should have stayed here, fought in this house, and put it together for the sake of Liberia,” he said, retrospecting the decision by the party’s Political Leader, Senator Karnga Lawrence, to withdraw from the CPP. “For us who stayed firm, we have entrusted the ship with Cummings to lead us. This is a very difficult time for our country.”

“With all of your experiences, Cummings, I want to assure you that this is the most difficult one. It is not an easy task to preside over a broken country, a divided people, and a country where doing the wrong thing is normal. It is not easy to preside over a country where even those who want to come to power do so with the intent of doing the wrong thing. It is a difficult task, but we are confident that you will live up to it,” said the embattled LP chairman who was referred to by the ANC chairman Senator Daniel Naatehn as LP's political leader.”

There were representatives from the United People’s Party (UPP), The National Democratic Party of Liberia (NDPL), and the People’s Liberation Party (PLP).