Monrovia — With the counting of votes nearing completion in Liberia's presidential and legislative elections last week, the chairman of the National Elections Commission (NEC), Frances Johnson-Morris said today that she has received death threats.
During a morning press briefing, she said that an unknown person had sent a text message to her cellular phone. "The message threatened me with death if I ever cheat," she said. Months before the balloting, another member of the Commission, co-chair Jimmy Fromayan received similar threats and some unknown person attempted to set his jeep on fire. Although the police and security forces made no arrest in the case, the NEC co-chair suggested the culprits might be partisans from the Congress for Democratic Change (CDC), whose candidate is George Weah.
Johnson-Morris said she took the threat seriously and that the matter would be passed on to the justice system, but added she was neither afraid nor deterred, "I have done my best everywhere I functioned nor this will not slow me down any."
With less than 10 percent of the ballot remaining to be counted and tabulated, the latest results show little change in the standing of the candidates. George Weah of the CDC still leads with 28.9 percent, a decline of almost three points over the weekend. Ellen Johnson Sirleaf stands at 19.7, up two percentage points over the weekend. Charles Brumskine made some gains since Friday but is still a distant third behind Weah and Sirleaf. Winston Tubman overtook Varney Sherman and now occupies fourth position.
Matchmaking has started in Monrovia, and so has campaigning, in a different mode, in preparation for the run-off campaign, which should commence on October 26. The leadership of the various political parties and many community leaders have begun consultations as to where to put their voices in the second round.
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Ethnicity and regionalism will be determining factors in the second round, just as age was a factor in the first round. Weah's campaign relies heavily on the eastern regions, especially Grand Geddeh where he arrived in the hometown of former military ruler Samuel K. Doe with T-shirts bearing Doe's portrait. The counties of Grand Bassa, Capemount and Bong, which went to candidates who will not be part of the second round, are up for a toss. Capemount went entirely to Varney Sherman while Winston Tubman took a majority of votes in Bong, and Charles Brumskine captured Bassa.
The role and importance of former 'standard bearers' is yet to be assessed. In a recent radio-call poll as well as an internal poll conducted by one of the political parties, more than 80 percent of voters said that they will make their own decision when it comes to choosing someone in the second round and would not follow the lead of anyone, including those for whom they voted in the first round.
So far 923,913 votes coming out of 2,781 polling stations out of a total of 3,070 have been counted and tabulated.
Many Liberians appeared to have been confused by the way the results were released. As the numbers and percentages for various candidates shifted, some people evidently concluded that cheating was taking place. Johnson-Morris defended the commission's performance and denied that the methodology used to report results was flawed.
"These were the most transparent elections Liberia had ever had," she said.
