ECOWAS, ECONEC pledge support for credible election in Liberia

By Abdulrahman Abdulrauf Abuja

Ahead of tomorrow’s general elections, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and its Network of Electoral Commissions (ECONEC) have pledged their commitment to peaceful and credible contest in Liberia.
Head of the ECOWAS Election Observation Mission to Liberia and former Ghanaian President, Mr. John Mahama and President of the ECONEC governing board, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, made the commitment at a meeting in Monrovia, the Liberia capital.
Leading the 71-member regional observation mission, Mahama told Prof. Mahmoud Yakubu, who is also Chair of Nigeria’s Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), that Liberia required all necessary support from ECOWAS and the international community at this critical juncture of its political history.

Mahama, who also led the Commonwealth Observation Mission to Kenya’s polls last August said: “It is the fi rst time that an elected government will be transferring power to another since the country’s devastating civil war that lasted for more than a decade.
” Th e Liberian war ended with the ECOWAS-led international intervention.
He described the recent nullifi cation of Kenya’s presidential election by the country’s Supreme Court as a lesson and useful experience for strengthening evolving electoral systems in Africa, especially with the introduction of technology.
He, however, warned against the entrenchment of a precedent whereby “elections are now settled by the judiciary, instead of at the polling booths.
” Yakubu, who led the ECONEC Needs Assessment and Solidarity Missions to Sierra Leone and Liberia last July, noted that the “integrity and moral force,” which the former president and his colleagues brought to electoral processes, facilitated the work of election management bodies on the continent, noting that all the 15 ECOWAS countries were now running democratic governments.
He restated his now familiar phrase that “it is cheaper to deploy ECONEC for credible and peaceful elections than to deploy ECOMOG,” the regional military force after fl awed elections.

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