CHARLES WALKER BRUMSKINE is no doubt a politician, and it is needless to say that independent analysts need not necessarily assimilate all his views, including those he made yesterday regarding the National Elections Commission. But the longtime Liberian legal practitioner and lawmaker certainly has provoked public debate on what needs to be done--probably undone--in order to make electoral politics in Liberia the chief metabolism of Liberia's nascent democracy and peace. He apparently might have sounded militant and largely sentimental, if not aggrieved, in addressing issues that had transpired between his Liberty Party and the NEC. But he was on target with the issues, which any sober analyst cannot dismiss on the pretext they come from the mouth and logic of an opposition element.

FIRST OF ALL, the question of political legitimacy and its role in the unending struggle for rice and rights in this country can only get stabilized when there is a credible, unimpeachable and independent Elections Commission that fairly umpires electoral processes to the delight and unquestioned acceptance of all stakeholders and the populace. As Brumskine reflected, it is true that violent conflict in Liberia, as it was recently in Kenya, did precipitate flawed elections. And he mentioned the elections of 1985 under Samuel K. Doe. Probably he did not have the time and space to also recount other instructive historical circumstances that cropped up following the 1997 vote, characterized by fear and intimidation and culminated into renewed insurgency politics. And there also were the elections of 1927, recorded in the Guinness Book of Records as the most fraudulent elections in human history with incumbent King's victory figure toppling that of the entire population of Liberia at the time. This was also followed by Slave Labor/ Fernando Po Crisis that took its toll on the body politic.

OTHER NATIONS HAVE had their own elections-related crises invariably bordering inept or subservient electoral bodies. The common remedies have been proper legislative shields that make them free and independent from external influences of players, particularly the incumbent political regime. In most countries around us, Elections Commissions, drawn from creams de la creams of the civil society, are held in reverence not merely because they demonstrate the imperative traits of competence and honesty, but also because they act completely independently of any group and any force. In order to remain resolute on their mandates, the Elections Commissions other countries around us, either through statutes or the Constitution, are put on par with the high court, whose members, though appointed by the Presidents, are immune to their withdrawal, suspension, dismissal or otherwise except by means of Parliamentary due process.

OURS IS YET to excel to those enviable realms. Our National Elections Commission still works at the will and pleasure of the President whose prerogative it is to appoint its members and dismiss them. The President still have powers to withdraw and reassign a member of our Elections Commission to any cabinet and civil service post. A typical example is the withdraw of Frances Johnson Morris, former Chair of the Elections Commission, by President Sirleaf immediately after the contentious 2005 elections and her appointment as Minister of Justice.

WITH THE SYSTEM OF political patronage and presidential cult system yet to be totally dismantled, it is not difficult under the natural settings of things to understand why our Elections Commission is what it is; and why the likes of the Liberty Party and Congress for Democratic Change are having the nightmare of waterloos in the corridors of the Elections Commission.

BETTER LATE THAN never. Liberia is still undergoing a forensic reform process. And certainly, the Elections Commission cannot afford to be exempted. But whatever the reform doses intended for the NEC, it is important and urgent that the formers don't forget to not only to shield this democratically critical body from external manipulations, but also to ensure that its members are sufficiently baptized to remain mentally clear and ideologically composed, independent, stable and neutral.