Liberia: Running Mate, Not Second Mate

There continues to be a lot of talk in Liberia about the Running Mate. This plenty talk is about the Running Mate to the Main Runner for the Presidency of Liberia. The Presidential Candidates have been placed under immense societal pressure to select Running Mates. This pressure continues because some Presidential Candidates have not selected their respective Running Mates as yet.

The reality is that some Running Mates have been selected because they are considered to be vote getters. In effect, these vote getters are Second Mates rather than Running Mates. They are Second Mates because they do not have the records to occupy the Office of the Presidency. Their selection also means that the Main Runners/Presidential Candidates also do not have the records to occupy the Office of the Presidency.

It is only on the basis of record, what has been done well, that any Candidate can stand up to occupy any elected office, especially the Presidency and Vice Presidency. The Candidates do not have records of helping to solve the main societal problem in Liberia. This problem is longstanding and  widespread poverty that has become the pretext for violence, which, at times, takes the forms of coup d'etat and civil war, experienced by Liberians. On the basis of this horrific experience, Liberians declare that they prefer Peace to War.

There should not be any surprise to anyone who realizes that societal problems continue because the Candidates elected do not have the relevant records for their respective offices. In leading by example, my Running Mate was Dr. Saye Guannu. 

While presenting Dr. Guannu to the Media, some questions were posed to me by the Media members and they were surprised when I referred them to Dr. Guannu for the answers. My referral was due to the fact that if a person were not to have the record to be a Running Mate, he or she could not serve as a Running Mate and should not serve as Main Runner.

I had no expectation of getting elected because of the UNFAIR /UNCONSTITUTIONAL electoral system that continues today. I was a Main Runner because of the need to raise awareness to motivate the people to work together through the Rule of Law to change the UNFAIR system into the FAIR system. 

When the results from the election came out, my Running Mate received 26 votes from his Home Town, where there were over 2000 registered members of his Political Party! Here we are going into the General and Presidential Election in October 2023 when not a single national religious leader, political leader, civil society leader, government leader and foreign partner leader is concerned about the high likelihood of post election violence because the upcoming election will not be FAIR!!!

The right thing to do is for the people who love Liberia to continue to raise awareness to motivate people to work together through the Rule of Law to transform the prevailing UNFAIR electoral system to the enduring FAIR electoral system. 

It is only through this transformation that persons with good records can get elected to bring the system of Justice, the indispensable ingredient for Peace and Progress in Liberia and in any other Country.