By Jenneh T. Borbor
Politicians vying for elective offices including the presidency could be disqualified from this year’s presidential and legislative election as the National Elections Commission plots to sanction people who are in conflict with the election laws.
NEC Monday warned against pre-campaign activities ordering aspirants to take down or remove their billboards, posters, banners, jingles, dramas, utterances and other forms of promotional paraphernalia effective May 15.
“Failure to comply with this mandate will lead to consequences for the candidate nomination process, which commences on June 14 June and ends on 14 July 2023,” NEC Chairperson Davidetta Brown Lansanah said in the capital Monrovia.
NEC uses the candidate nomination process to disqualify or clear aspirants in the framework of the country’s elections laws and regulations.
The head of European Union Delegation to Liberia Ambassador Laureate Delahousse recently called on political parties and the National Elections Commission (NEC) to be clear on the implementation of election’s regulations.
Campaign regulations are important for the functioning of the country’s democracy and rules governing elections should be applied on a fair basis, the European diplomat said during the Inter-party Consultative Committee meeting.
On 5 May, the Commission started documenting violations of campaign regulations and warned that all aspirants engaged in pre-campaigning must desist to avoid future embarrassments.
The elections governing body has set 5 August to 8 October 2023 as period to canvass for vote and has warned that any campaign activities done before the campaigning 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.
