Liberia's National Elections Commission, NEC, on Wednesday announced the first batch of provisional results from Tuesday's presidential and legislative poll. While the figures represent only a fraction of the total votes cast, the commission says some people are yet to vote.
The chairperson of the elections commission, Davidetta Browne-Lansanah, said bad roads, flooding, and rains damaged some electoral materials and blocked access to some voting districts.
"The damaged materials will be replaced for the conduct of the elections in the affected areas within a week's time," said Browne-Lansanah. "The NEC will dispatch a team to assist the magisterial team in the county as soon as possible. Additionally, due to inaccessibility and lack of mobile network coverage, there has so far been no information from five precincts."
The elections commission says without communications from these precincts, they are unable to determine if voting there took place or not.
The Liberia Election Observation Network (LEON) has been observing this election, and called on the elections committee to provide further details on the size of the precincts that are yet to vote.
"What I thought the commission would have done, for instance, is to give an overall impression of the number of voters within those isolated cases," said Augustine Tamba, the head secretariat of LEON. "In that way, analysts are able to draw a complete analysis between the number of votes that we are expecting in these places versus the overall votes that have been cast."
Some observer groups also criticized supporters of political parties who are parading the streets declaring their candidates are winners, urging their leaders to be patient for official results.
"I am happy that these results have just begun to be announced, said Mmonbeydo Nadine Joah, a lawyer and election observer for the Project Accountable Safe Space. "We look forward to everyone listening and respecting the will of the people. So, right now, we cannot say anything until all of the election results are announced."
The elections commission says vote tallying is ongoing and it will give a daily update to help manage expectations and the spreading of rumors.
