The National Elections Commission (NEC) mandates political aspirants here with campaign materials, including flyers and billboards erected at street corners or jingoes disseminated on radio and television to bring them down before Monday, 15 May 2023.
NEC Chairperson Davidetta Browne Lansannah issued the instruction on Monday, May 8, 2023, in a press conference at the Commission headquarters in Sinkor, Monrovia while speaking on the ongoing Biometric Voter's Registration exercise.
Chairperson Lansannah stresses that all billboards, posters, banners, jingles, dramas, utterances and other forms of promotional paraphernalia that signify pre-campaigning must be removed before this deadline.
She says failure to comply with this mandate would lead to serious consequences for those involved especially, during the candidate nomination process, which runs from 14 June to 14 July 2023.
In contravention of the elections law, aspirants across the country, including incumbent President George MannehWeah have billboards, posters, banners and flyers with their photographs erected across Monrovia and other parts of the country, calling on citizens to go and register to participate in the ensuing October's elections.
She reveals that on Friday, May 5, the Commission started documenting violations of campaign regulations, warning that all aspirants engaged in pre-campaigning must desist immediately, to avoid future embarrassments.
She explains that during the recent Inter-Party Consultative Committee (IPCC) Information Sharing Meeting, NEC reaffirmed its unwavering resolve to enforce the 2023 Revised and Published Guidelines on Campaigning and informed all registered political parties, coalitions, alliances, and would-be aspirants that as of 5 May, the commission will begin to document violations of the guidelines and apply the appropriate actions against non-compliance.
At that meeting, she says the commission also reiterated that the campaign period for the 2023 Presidential and Legislative elections is 5 August to 8 October 2023 and further warns that any campaign activities done before the official campaign period are considered pre-campaigning, punishable by a fine of not less than US$1,000.00 or more than US$5,000.00 or its equivalence in Liberian Dollars payable into government revenue.
Meanwhile, Madam Lansannah says Phase II of the 2023 Biometric Voter Registration (BVR) in Bong, Grand Gedeh, Grand Kru, Lofa, Maryland, Nimba, River Gee, River Cess and Sinoe commenced on 21 April 2023 as planned with all 1,015 registration centers in these counties opened for eligible Liberians to register.
She notes that initial indications from staff in the field are that the process has been generally peaceful and is proceeding as planned, adding that as it was in the case of Phase One, commissioners and staff of the NEC are using a holistic, coordinated approach to ensure that the process remains on course.
"To this end, the NEC, LAXTON and Neurotechnology technical teams have put in place rapid response mechanisms to resolve challenges. By this holistic coordinated approach, we are addressing the challenges on ground", the NEC Boss assures.
She continues that even with this generally positive outlook of the process in Phase Two, as expected, there have been some challenges at some of the centers, such as spoilage of ribbons due to the application of wrong procedures for printing, thereby also spoiling cards and cleaning materials resulting to increased demands for ribbons and cards.
Madam Lansannah says to resolve this problem, which was also observed in Phase One, the Commission immediately thereafter, internationally procured additional cards and ribbons for Phase Two of the exercise, which arrived in the country last week and were immediately deployed to the field.
Similarly, she explains that voter registration centers that had excess materials were being redistributed to centers that had limited supplies and that the few centers that experienced these challenges of printing and issuance of ID cards on the spot, continued the registration of eligible Liberians, with the assurance of issuing those cards at a later date.
"The ID cards for those registrants are being printed and issued. The Commission assures all registrants that did not receive their cards on the spot will receive them prior to the commencement of the Exhibition on 12 June 2023. The magisterial teams are working overtime to ensure that all registered Liberians receive their voter's ID cards."
Chairperson Lansannah adds that in order to address glitches in the running of the BVR equipment, NEC, LAXTON and Neurotechnology have flown in spare parts for BVR machines, and technicians are repairing and redeploying BVR machines in real time to continue the voter registration process.
She says logistics and support to communication to the counties and among technicians at the various hubs created throughout the nine counties and those at the voter registration centers are being hampered by difficult road conditions and lack of mobile phone connectivity.
She explains that in addressing this issue, the Commission deployed a pool of vehicles in the counties to help convey materials as well as support retrieval and redeployment of BVR kits and management teams and technicians.
She emphasizes that deduplication/adjudication of the voter registration records from the six counties in Phase One is ongoing at the NEC Data Center, to remove all instances of multiple registration and other data cleansing processes, including identification and removal of underage registrants.
The NEC assures Liberians that the BVR system possesses the capacity to detect these instances during the above-mentioned exercise and it has opened its doors to all observers and stakeholders, including political party technicians that are duly accredited to observe the deduplication and adjudication process.
She urges eligible Liberians in Phase Two of the BVR, who are yet to register to do so before the end of the process on 11 May 2023, as there will be no extension of the process beyond the 11 May deadline.
The NEC also encourages the use of the online Personal Data Entry application as an optional means of entering would-be registrants' data to help fast-track the completion of their registration at the registration centers where their thumbprints will be captured, photos taken, and ID cards issued.
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At the same time, the Commission reiterates its earlier advice to Liberians 18 years and above not to attempt to register more than once, noting that it is a crime to get engaged in multiple registrations and perpetrators caught will be turned over to the Justice Ministry for prosecution.
Besides, it says such multiple registrants will be automatically deactivated by the BVR system with individuals involved risk losing the opportunity to exercise your franchise during the 10 October elections.
At the same time, Chairperson Lansannah says with respect to election financing, the Government of Liberia has committed itself to fully funding the 10 October 2023 Elections, and that to date, the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning (MFDP) has disbursed US$47,500,000.00 (Forty-Seven Million Five Hundred Thousand Dollars) out of the US$53,000,000.00 budgeted for the fiscal years of 2022 and 2023.
She says on Thursday, 4 May, the Minister of Finance and Development Planning assured the Commission at the National Steering Committee on Elections of his commitment of providing the balance of US$5,500,000.00 (Five Million Five Hundred Thousand) before the end of May 2023.
The National Steering Committee on Elections (NSCE) is a high-level stakeholders' committee with the primary objective to bring all relevant government institutions and key electoral stakeholders together to coordinate, collaborate and provide timely and adequate support to help ensure credible, transparent, and inclusive electoral process in 2023, as guided by law and in national interest. The NSCE is chaired by the Minister of Justice and co-chaired by the United Nations Resident Coordinator and ECOWAS Representative to Liberia.
