Liberia's pro-democracy and pro-advocacy group Naymote Partners for Democratic Development has released campaign tracking report for presidential candidates in the 2023 elections.
Addressing a news conference at Naymote head office in Rehab community Paynesville over the weekend, Executive Director, Eddie D. Jarwolo, revealed that a total of 665 campaign promises were tracked from the manifestos of
political parties, rally speeches, debates, media engagements, town hall meetings and social media posts, covering the period, August 5 to October 5, 2023.
Director Jarwolo explained that Naymote received manifestos of six political parties namely: Coalition for Democratic Change (CDC), Unity Party (UP), Collaborating Political Parties (CPP), Liberian National Union (LINU), African Liberation League (ALL), and Liberian People's Party (LPP), respectively.
According to him, most of the promises tracked focus on the economy, health, education, agriculture, climate change, decentralization, local governance and tourism. Others are women, infrastructure and youth empowerment.
He said there were some measurable promises such as creating food production zones (agro-economic zones across the 15 counties, establishing a national students' loan program for all tertiary institutions, providing 100,000 new jobs annually for Liberians, creating a food processing center in Bong County, establish a National Tourism and Culture Authority (NTCA), create 10,000 jobs through a new national rice policy, launch a $20M empowerment fund to support women and youth-owned businesses, increase primary school enrolment by 20% and reduce the number of out-of-school children by 40% in the first- term, develop curricula for TVET institutions that are aligned with skills needed by concessionaires and other industries.
The exercise is part of Naymote's President Meter Project, aimed at promoting political accountability, influence public policy, and stimulate discussions among citizens and stakeholders to fulfill political campaign promises as well as enhance the social contract between elected officials and the electorates.
Mr. Jarwolo noted that for the past six years, Naymote has monitored and tracked performance of President Weah against promises he made during and after the 2017 elections.
Meanwhile, he explained that the report has facilitated public accountability and dialogues between citizens and the government, adding that over the course of the electoral campaign, political parties and civil society organizations invariably used the President Meter Report as a reference document on the performance of the Weah administration.
The institution believes that tracking campaign promises of presidential candidates and monitoring political parties throughout elections are essential for sustaining the foundations of democracy, ensuring fair competition, and protecting the integrity of electoral processes.
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The Naymote boss explained that the institution appreciates a more issues-based campaign and development of manifestos, but that most of the candidates avoided political debates and spoke at political rallies with little reference to their written manifestos.
Sadly, he observed that these manifestos are not easily accessible to the public and are not published on candidates' official websites, which made it difficult for Naymote to access the manifesto of the rest of the parties contesting the presidential election.
He revealed effective January 2024, official activities for the President Meter Project will begin with winner of the 2023 Presidential Election.
