Liberia’s opposition coalition wobbles in race to pick presidential flagbearer
Liberia’s opposition Coalition of Political Parties (CPP) is moving unsteadily toward a key deadline. On 1 December, the coalition’s four participating parties must unanimously choose a presidential candidate to contest in 2023 when President George Weah of the Coalition for Democratic Change (CDC) will likely seek a second term. But now, infighting between the constituents threatens to scuttle that cooperation, collapse the coalition and pave the way for Weah’s re-election.
Significance – Rivals in alliance
The CPP was formed in 2020 with the three main leaders being Liberty Party’s Senator Nyonblee Karnga-Lawrence, Alexander Cummings of the Alternative National Congress (ANC) and the Unity Party’s Joseph Boakai. The coalition showed strength when it won more Senate seats than the ruling CDC in the midterm elections held that year.[1] Crucially, that included seats in Montserrado and Bong. Bong is the home county of the current vice president Jewel Howard-Taylor, while Montserrado is the most populous of Liberia’s 15 counties and it is where about one-third of Liberians live.[2] It is also where Weah drew the most support when he won the 2017 election. Defeating the ruling party in its own base raised CPP’s political stock, but internal disputes have since undone some of the momentum gained from that outing.
This CPP infighting is principally caused by differences between the coalition parties over hierarchy and the selection of candidates for 2023 elections, particularly the selection of the presidential flagbearer. The UP’s Boakai was vice president when the party was in power from 2006 to 2018, and the party began the coalition with more seats in parliament than the other participants combined. He and his main rival Cummings, a former Coca Cola executive, separately contested in the 2017 presidential election and they each now insist on being the CPP flagbearer. Apparently in her own interest, Karnga-Lawrence also maintains that a woman must be on the ticket even if this is as a running mate. Meanwhile, all three leaders have had difficulty rallying key figures in their own parties. This is exemplified by the current disagreement between Karnga-Lawrence and her party chair Musa Bility, who is a former football administrator linked to Weah – himself a former footballer.
Theoretically, there is path and timeline for resolving the discord. The CPP’s pact states that the constituent parties must all agree on the coalition’s presidential candidate and running mate latest by 1 December. But if this consensus is not reached by then, they must publicly organise a voter perception survey to determine the most popular candidates and finally hold a primary election to conclude the process. However, Boakai, Cummings and Karnga-Lawrence have been reluctant to commit to following the rules to its conclusion and remaining in the coalition no matter the outcome.
Outlook – No change without consensus
The future of CPP depends on its constituents’ ability to reach a consensus on a flagbearer in December as scheduled. Just as Weah’s CDC rose to power as a coalition, CPP could go into the 2023 polls as a very strong contender if its constituent rivals manage to reconcile their differences. If not, the rest of the CPP’s nomination process will be in peril and Weah’s CDC will likely be poised to retain power. The 2017 election results support this likelihood. The parties that now make up CPP won a combined 47.2% of votes in 2017, more than Weah’s 38.4 percent[3].
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[1] It won six out of 15 senate seats, while the CDC won four.
[2] 2008 Population and Housing Census (May 2009). Liberia Institute of Statistics.
[3] Weah won the 2017 runoff by a landslide when faced with UP’s Boakai alone after all parties failed to win an absolute majority in the first round.
*Photo credit: Voter education in Maryland County, Liberia. Brittany Danisch, CC BY 2.0
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