25 June 2009
Monrovia — Liberia’s presidential election is in the offing with the election reform promised by the Accra Comprehensive Peace Accord or CPA still outstanding. Still outstanding also is the reduction of political parties to decongest and level the political playing field to give candidates equal opportunity and to give voters a clear choice for the job. Instead of concentrating on this possible logjam to a peaceful election, some politicians are scheming and snaking they ways, hopefully, to power – searching for soft landing spots. One of these politicians, observers say, is Cllr. Winston A. Tubman. He recently obtained permission to team up with CDC’s George Weah, having leapt from Samuel Doe’s NDPL to Harry Moniba’s Liberia National Union (LINU) as “ordinary member”. “But how is he likely to fare?” observers say is the begging question. The Analyst Staff Writer, reports.
The Standard Bearer of the Congress for Democratic Change (CDC) and Cllr Winston Tubman, Tuesday this week in Accra, signed a communiqué committing them to jointly contest the 2011 presidential elections.
A dispatch from Accra, Ghana, quoting the communiqué said both men agreed to collaborate and join resources and efforts to put up a joint challenge during the presidential election that is due in two year’s time.
The dispatch fell short of saying what form the collaboration will take in the order of power, in terms of presidential and vice presidential candidates.
But it noted that Messrs. Weah and Tubman further agreed to report to their respective party executive committees on the goal of the Accra communiqué, which observers say is the strongest yet effort by Cllr. Tubman snake into power.
The two political leaders called upon other opposition parties to join in their collaboration efforts, the dispatch said.
They acknowledged the difficulties the nation was going through due to economic hardship and called upon Liberians to give them their full support as they strive to achieve national unity, security, development and prosperity.
“Ambassadors Weah and Tubman expressed concerns at the lack of progress towards national reconciliation, the unabated expansion and practice of corruption with impunity, the increase violent crimes, and deteriorating living standard of Liberians,” the dispatch quoted the communiqué as saying.
Snaking to Power
Recent media reports said the former Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary General to Somalia attended a CDC political rally to convince Weah to become his running mate comes 2011.
He reportedly made it clear at the time that he would be the standard-bearer while Weah held the vice standard-bearer post of the coalition of NDPL and CDC. Weah’s position on the proposal for joint efforts in which he will subordinate his avowed bid for president of Liberia to another politician was not known up to press time yesterday.
But political observers say though the Accra discussion was not Cllr. Tubman’s first attempt to woo the CDC over to his political machinery, it was the first bold step that brought, what critics call his hydra-headed annexation plan, to the fore.
Cllr. Tubman, reportedly a staunch member of the discredited True Whig Party (TWP), abandoned the party during the 2005 presidential election, and adopted and adapted as standard-bearer the also near-discredited National Democratic Party of Liberia (NDPL) of slain President Samuel K. Doe.
Reports said the counselor’s move at the time was a calculated political plan designed to play the Congo-country divide card as a compromise candidate and hopefully ride to power with ease.
“With both his parents came from either side of the so-called ethnic divide, Tubman was better positioned for the compromise candidate gamble,” said one observer.
But when it was all over, Tubman came out of the scheme in the fourth place, clutching a mere 9.2% of total eligible votes cast.
But that did not deter him: he quickly threw his support behind CDC’s George Weah in the subsequent run-off election called to determine the constitutional majority between Weah and Unity Party’s Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf.
Weah lost to Ellen and Tubman briefly went into political oblivion, occasionally throwing jabs at the Sirleaf Administration on such prevailing questions as poverty and corruption and what to do with suspects.
It was until the middle of last week that the NDPL standard-bearer resurfaced as a reborn visionary, warning Liberians that the Congo-Country feud, though latent, was still alive and was undermining the political and economic development of the country.
The occasion was the legal practitioner’s leap yet to another political establishment that seems vulnerable and badly in need of support. This time, it was the party of Harry Fumba Moniba – the Liberia National Union (LINU).
“Unless as many Liberians as possible group ourselves together and act quickly to launch a new political dispensation in our country, the violence which has subsided could again return with a vengeance and if it did, it could destroy our country,” one media report quoted Cllr. Tubman as saying at a LINU rally to install new leaders.
Cllr. Tubman gave any reason for abandoning Doe’s NDPL for his vice president’s LINU, heightening public suspicion that he may have bought the party to provide him easy access to the party’s vast Lofa constituency and to the Executive Mansion.
But LINU Vice Chairman for Political Affairs, Nathaniel McGill, told journalists that the counselor has come to the party with a wealth of experience to help strengthen it and not to buy or dominate it.
While that made sense and brought relief to a number of LINU partisans who spoke with The Analyst shortly after LINU’s induction and welcome ceremony last week, some say Cllr. Tubman’s current communiqué with CDC’s George Manneh Weah, casts a long dark shadow over the “help to strengthen and not to buy and dominate” explanation.
“When two politicians meet to discuss pooling resources and jointly contesting a hot political seat, they do so from positions of authority. Weah signed the communiqué as standard bearer of CDC and promised to stamp the affirmation of his party on the deal. Cllr. Tubman said the same; but on behalf of whom? LINU or NDPL in which he would have had that authority but had just recently dumped?” wondered LINU partisan Jacob G. Toby of Logan Town.
Toby expressed fears that the counselor, who he said was a newcomer and a “floor member that hardly know anything about LINU”, was committing the party to something neither the founding fathers nor the present executive leadership had dreamt about.
“He’s already acting unilaterally. This is the sign that he is going to dominate, not consult prior to taking actions. Next, he will ask to be given the standard-bearer position. They say that was how he got the NDPL and have to abandon it because he was facing undaunted resistance in his bid to join forces with CDC,” Toby claimed.
While incumbent LINU executives still hold their grounds that the veteran politician will not adopt, adapt, and dominate the party but will be an instrument of strength, analysts say the question now is not whether Cllr. Tubman will dominate, but how he will fare in LINU, given the apparent grassroots opposition to “big-shotism” in the party.
In their view, seeking a party to ride was bad politics in a country where the lack of sustained voters’ education has left many voters unfit to make informed choices on what caliber of politicians should be their next leaders.
“What is needed of any sincere politician is to join forces with other Liberians to build social and political consensuses on governance. Or at best, hold extensive consultations to discuss the bases for political merger that eschew the ‘godfather-novice’ relationship that the counselor and many others like him are seeking,” said one observer.
He said if politicians and party leaders hold discussions to blend two to three smaller parties into one big and popular one, that would decongest the political playing field and indicate to the Liberian people that politicians, at long last, have resolved to tolerate one another and relegate their individual ambitions to the political fittest.
“On the contrary, if you seek collaboration and merger in which each party keeps its identity and power, you are seeking confusion and deeper rumbling,” he said.
“But will they, or will they continue to prey on vulnerable parties as they snake to power?” is the question that analysts say needs immediate answer.
Read comments. Write your own.
Copyright © 2009 The Analyst. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
Poor Weah ! I hope he knows what he is getting himself into. I am so surprised at Tubman,a nephew of president Tubman,he cant win presidential election by himself.
They have lavished all the money they stole from our country during his uncle's heavy handed rule and only want to replanish their foreign bank accounts.
Tubman is not even ashamed of himself: begging the country( and so-called uneducated political novice ) to help him win the next elections.
What a shame.