NPP Disenchanted With CDC

The National Patriotic Party (NPP) has accused its governing partner, the Congress for Democratic Change, of unilaterally making decisions and policies that impact the ruling coalition's other members.

The NPP of Vice President Jewel Howard -Taylor, Liberia People Democratic Party (LPDP), and President George Weah Congress for Democratic Change are the three constituting members of the ruling Coalition for Democratic Change.  Its solid base is in Bong County where its former political leader and Liberia’s President, Charles Taylor, was based for several years during the Liberian civil war.

The release notes that when the ruling Coalition was formed through the respective parties to participate in the 2017 Presidential and Legislative election, they did so under the stewardship of a Governing Council, a team of highly qualified and experienced people.

“The Governing Council effectively guided and steered the affairs Of the Coalition for Democratic Change to a milestone victory. Once Victory was achieved, the Congress for Democratic Change rendered the Governing Council functionally immaterial by its (Congress) action,” the NPP release said. “

The Vice President party further accused the Party of President Weah of making a unilateral decision in determining the government's architecture, leaving the other two parties with no major role in decisions that affect the governance of the country.

"This is certainly not the spirit with which the Coalition was formed. The NPP considers it unfortunate that the Congress for Democratic Change selected to unilaterally decide the issue of the Coalition for Democratic and in the ensuing by-election," the NPP said.

The NPP’s complaint comes a few days after LPDP of former speaker J. Alex Tyler made a similar allegation against Congress for Democratic Change for taking unilateral decisions within their political marriage.

“This must go forth that, going forward, we will no longer sit idly and allow decisions that affect us to be unilaterally taken by any single party, whether it is the Congress for Democratic Change is or the National Patriotic Party, and then sleep on it all in the name of exercising maturity,” the LPDP leader said in a statement.

The rebuking statement was made after CDC Chairman Mulbah Morlu disclosed weeks ago that the ruling party was not fielding any candidate in the upcoming by-election in Bomi County, despite being a stronghold of the LPDP and an area of interest. The LDPD however accused the CDC and its hierarchy of taking such a decision without consulting them when they had planned to file in one of its partisans, Obediah J. Varney to contest the by-election in Bomi County.

The party added: “This unfolding development is unimaginable. The LPDP must have a say in whatever decision that affected Bomi County and the Western Region, be it political or administrative. What has changed, or are we no longer relevant in the process, we believe the LPDP deserves better.”

Meanwhile, the National Executive Committee of the NPP has endorsed the candidature of Sam Brown who is contesting the by-election in District one (1) Nimba County despite Mulbah's position that the CDC will not be contesting the election there. Instead, the party will support whichever candidate chosen by Senator Prince Y. Johnson.

“Partisan Brown is a National Patriotic Party partisan. He contested the Representatives election in the same District in 2017 achieving second place,” the release said. 

The NPP said it can be recalled that the Congress for Democratic Change made a similar unilateral decision to field a set of incumbent Senators in the 2020 midterm election with the result producing disastrous political consequences for the Coalition.

The Party added that during that period, the advice of the other two constituent Parties in the Coalition, the NPP and the LPDP, “that the Coalition derives its candidates through democratic primaries was resisted by the Congress for Democratic Change.”

The party, considering the importance it attaches to the by-election, has directed its Nimba County political machinery to get involved in the support of partisan Sam Brown. “We also call on all our partisans and supporters in the district and the entire Nimba County to rally their support behind Partisan Brown,” the release said.

The complaint from the NPP regarding elections is not the first time. During the 2020 mid- Senatorial electrons, Senator Dan Morais of Maryland County, who is an executive member of the former ruling National Patriotic Party (NPP), joined rank with his standard-bearer, Vice President Howard-Taylor, to accuse the Congress of Democratic Change of President Weah of violating the current framework that governs the tripartite coalition.

Then Sen. Morais claimed that the ruling coalition framework gives the right to the individual political parties in the coalition to decide who becomes their candidate, more so when there is already an incumbent with whom they can work.

Backing the senator’s position, VP Taylor said that the entire collaborative framework on which the coalition was established, seems to be turning upside-down to the extent that the coalition is currently in a critical position because of the blatant violation of portions of the agreements that brought the three political parties into the collaboration.

"There are areas where there are explicit rules and laws and we need to abide by them. We need to respect the terms of the agreement that consummated the Coalition so that we can live in an environment of peace and unity as we go forward,” the VP said last year.