Liberia’s opposition faces a rare opening and an old trap at the same time. The opening is real: a drug scandal that has shaken public confidence, hardship that has reached ordinary kitchens, and once-undecided citizens now looking for an alternative. The trap is older than any of us – the habit of wasting such openings in quarrels over who shall lead and who shall eat.

The debate sharpened by former President George Weah’s opposition roundtable therefore raises a decisive question: can the opposition build an alliance capable of winning in 2029 and remaining intact after victory?

The answer is yes, but only if the opposition begins with the truth, learns from the coalitions it has already buried and binds itself in writing to the rules that will govern leadership, legislative candidacies and the sharing of responsibility after victory.

START FROM THE TRUTH

Some argue that unity must begin with every party treated as a perfect equal, and that acknowledging one party’s greater weight invites domination. The concern is legitimate: unity must never become surrender. But strict equality among parties with vastly different constituencies, structures and electoral records is a political fiction. An alliance built on that fiction will begin by deceiving itself.

The Congress for Democratic Change is not simply one party among several. It brings a national organization, six years of presidential experience and an enduring constituency demonstrated more convincingly by its performance in the 2023 election than by even the largest welcome crowd.

Former President Weah remains arguably the opposition’s most electorally competitive national figure. Those facts do not erase the shortcomings of the CDC administration, and the party must show that it has learned from them. They do, however, make the CDC the natural anchor of any opposition coalition with a serious prospect of taking power in 2029.

Recognizing that reality does not crown the CDC or grant it permanent ownership of the alliance. It creates the basis for a harder bargain: the largest party may lead, but its leadership must be tied to rules it cannot rewrite, suspend or ignore once victory is within reach.

WHAT THE CPP AND CDC COALITIONS TEACH

Liberia does not need a foreign textbook to understand why coalitions fail. We have buried two instructive examples in recent memory.

The Collaborating Political Parties brought together the Unity Party, Alternative National Congress, All Liberian Party and Liberty Party. Its early promise was real; collaboration helped opposition candidates win seats in the 2020 senatorial elections. Within two years, however, the arrangement had fractured amid disputes over how the standard-bearer would be chosen, whether the Framework Document had been altered and whether the rotating chairmanship would pass as agreed.

The Unity Party withdrew in February 2022 and later won the presidency on its own. The CPP was defeated less by its political opponents than by unsettled rules and broken trust.

The CDC’s own coalition offers the second warning. The arrangement joining the Congress for Democratic Change, National Patriotic Party and Liberia People Democratic Party won the 2017 election and took office in 2018. It later frayed as junior partners complained that appointments and influence had not been shared as expected. A coalition can capture the Executive Mansion and still rot from within when partners believe the promises that secured their support ended on Election Day.

The lesson is plain: settle the rules and the responsibilities before the campaign, preserve the agreement where no party can secretly alter it, and create consequences for breach. Otherwise, the next alliance will carry a different name to the same graveyard.

THE COVENANT THAT MUST BIND THE PARTNERS

The real danger is not that one party is larger. It is that the larger party may become unaccountable, while smaller parties discover too late that their guarantees existed only in speeches and handshakes. The answer is a binding inter-party covenant, negotiated and signed before the first rally and lodged with every participating party and an agreed independent custodian.

The covenant should govern the alliance before, during and after the election. Before the campaign, it should establish a common platform – a Contract With the Liberian People – and set the decision-making rules and transparent procedures for choosing the standard-bearer and vice standard-bearer.

During the campaign, it should create a joint command, prohibit public attacks among partners and settle how candidates will be fielded in legislative races. After victory, it should establish a Coalition Governing Council, define the partners’ participation in government and provide review, mediation and sanctions when the agreement is breached.

This must be more than a promise to distribute jobs. Coalition partners may earn the right to nominate qualified people for agreed areas of responsibility, but every nomination must remain subject to competence, integrity, constitutional appointment authority and Senate confirmation where required. Public offices cannot become the private property of political parties. The purpose is to prevent exclusion while preserving merit and the law.

THE PRESIDENT’S CONSTITUTIONAL PREROGATIVE – AND ITS POLITICAL PRICE

Any serious covenant must confront a constitutional fact. Article 54 gives the President the power to nominate and, with the consent of the Senate, appoint cabinet ministers and other designated officials. Article 56 provides that officials appointed under the Constitution hold office at the President’s pleasure. A coalition agreement cannot repeal those provisions, transfer the appointing power to a party council or legally compel a President to retain an official whom the Constitution permits the President to remove.

Constitutional authority, however, is not political immunity. A President who approves the covenant, sanctions its vetting machinery and campaigns on its promises cannot later treat presidential prerogative as an escape from obligations that helped elect him.

Coalition partners should recommend qualified candidates for agreed areas of responsibility, and a Joint Vetting Committee should examine competence, integrity, experience, conflicts of interest and legal eligibility. Once that process produces an approved nominee, rejection or removal should require a substantial written reason based on competence, integrity, misconduct, national security or the public interest.

The President would retain the final constitutional decision and the Senate its confirmation authority. But an unjustified departure from the approved process would constitute a political breach. The Coalition Governing Council should then be able to publish a finding, censure the President, demand corrective consultation and suspend specified coalition privileges. Repeated or grave violations could release injured partners from agreed obligations, end their duty to defend the administration and ultimately justify withdrawal from the governing arrangement.

The warning must be unmistakable: a President may retain the legal power to appoint or dismiss while losing the confidence and organized support of the coalition that helped put him in office. This does not weaken the presidency; it gives betrayal a political price. A covenant without such consequences would be only another campaign promise waiting to be discarded.

A FAIR FORMULA, NOT A BLANK CHEQUE

The covenant will fail if it promises a ‘fair share’ without defining fairness. The partners should therefore agree upon a contribution formula before negotiations over individual positions begin. That formula could combine five measurable factors: each party’s most recent presidential vote, its number of elected legislators, its demonstrated county and district strength, its verified organizational presence, and its agreed contribution to the coalition campaign.

The precise weighting must be negotiated, but the evidence should be published within the alliance and audited by its technical committee. Recent election results should carry the greatest weight because they offer the clearest measure of public support. Organizational reach and campaign contribution should matter, but they must never be allowed to purchase control of the alliance.

Such a formula would guide representation on coalition bodies, legislative seat allocation and the right to recommend qualified nominees after victory. It would also give smaller parties something stronger than goodwill: a known method by which their contribution is recognized.

CHOOSING THE PRESIDENTIAL TICKET

The CDC’s national reach, electoral performance and organizational capacity give it the strongest claim to produce the alliance’s standard-bearer. That claim should still be confirmed through the covenant’s transparent process rather than asserted by decree. Whether the alliance adopts an open primary, delegate convention or weighted system, the method must be written before any candidate is formally presented. The CPP’s ghost should warn every negotiator against changing the rules after personalities and ambitions enter the room.

The vice-standard-bearer position should not be filled by the CDC alone. It should be reserved for another significant coalition partner or allocated through the agreed contribution formula. The Coalition Governing Council should ratify the nominee after genuine consultation. Geography, religion, generation, gender, political experience and the candidate’s capacity to expand the ticket should inform the decision. No single factor should become a tokenistic substitute for competence and national appeal.

A ticket chosen under known rules will possess a legitimacy that no unilateral announcement can manufacture. It will embody the alliance rather than merely place a partner’s face beneath the name of the dominant party.

ONE OPPOSITION CANDIDATE PER RACE

Presidential unity will mean little if coalition partners fight one another in House and Senate races. Under Liberia’s first-past-the-post system, multiple allied candidates can split the opposition vote and deliver seats to the ruling party. The alliance could win the presidency yet enter government without the legislative strength required to advance its program.

The Coalition Governing Council should therefore map every House district and county senatorial race and assign each contest to the partner best positioned to win it. Past results, local organization, candidate quality and verifiable community support should guide the decision. Where two parties have credible claims, the dispute should be resolved through a district primary, a delegate process or a binding decision based on agreed electoral data.

Each party may conduct the internal primary for seats allocated to it, but common standards must govern every contest. A joint vetting panel representing all partners should examine integrity, residency, legal eligibility, public record and winnability. This prevents any party’s gatekeepers from disqualifying a strong aspirant under the convenient cover of ‘standards.’ The objective is simple: one credible coalition candidate in every race, chosen cleanly and seen to have been chosen cleanly.

A COVENANT WITH THE PEOPLE

An alliance cannot ask Liberians to trust an agreement concerned only with leadership, seats and appointments. Alongside the covenant among the parties, it should publish a short Contract With the Liberian People, written in language a market woman, student, civil servant and motorcyclist can understand and use to measure the government.

That contract should make specific, realistic commitments on jobs and the cost of living; the drug crisis and even-handed justice; corruption and public procurement; electricity and roads; health and education. It should identify what the alliance will do, how progress will be measured and when the public should expect results. A coalition that binds itself to its partners and to the people gives undecided voters a reason to support it and creates two sets of witnesses capable of holding it accountable.

NEGOTIATING WITHOUT GOING SILENT

Coalition negotiations must not become a political ceasefire with the ruling party. The opposition may need months to settle its internal arrangements, but the country cannot wait for it to finish negotiating before receiving organized scrutiny of the government. The alliance should therefore establish an interim Joint Opposition Accountability Secretariat, separate from the negotiators, with researchers, lawyers, legislators, communicators and sector specialists assigned to monitor government conduct and offer credible alternatives.

The cocaine crisis should be its first test. The opposition should demand a transparent account of the trafficking chain: how the consignments entered Liberia, who financed and protected them, what public assets or security structures were compromised, what assets have been traced, and what safeguards now protect the evidence and prosecutions.

It should press for periodic official reports, legislative hearings, lawful access to public records, independent scrutiny of the investigations and cooperation with credible international partners where necessary. Its focus must reach beyond arrested couriers and political personalities to the financiers, beneficial owners, institutional protectors and failures of command that made operations of such magnitude possible.

Pressure must remain factual and lawful. The opposition should defend the presumption of innocence, avoid claims it cannot prove and resist turning criminal prosecutions into campaign theatre.

False accusations would help the government dismiss legitimate scrutiny as propaganda and could damage cases that must be tried on evidence. A disciplined opposition should instead publish verified accountability briefs, coordinate questions across its legislative caucuses, hold regular public forums, support peaceful civic action and present specific reforms for border security, financial intelligence, evidence management, prosecution and rehabilitation.

The same machinery should follow procurement controversies, unexplained dismissals, misuse of public resources, hardship and failures in essential services. Negotiators can build the alliance while an accountability team keeps watch on the government.

That division of labour will prevent unity talks from becoming an excuse for silence and show Liberians that the opposition is preparing not merely to inherit power, but to exercise it more responsibly.

IMMEDIATE NEXT STEPS

• Constitute a technical committee with one authorized representative from each participating party to negotiate the covenant, public contract, ticket-selection method, legislative protocol and post-victory governance formula within a fixed period.
• Reduce every agreement to writing and have every party formally ratify it before the campaign begins; copies should be held by all partners and an agreed independent custodian.
• Keep negotiations open to opposition parties and credible independent actors that did not attend the first meeting, while requiring every new entrant to accept the rules already lawfully adopted.
• Publish the Contract With the Liberian People once agreed, making the electorate a guarantor of the alliance’s promises.
• Create a dispute-resolution panel before the first dispute arises, with deadlines for decisions and consequences that apply equally to large and small partners.
• Establish an interim Joint Opposition Accountability Secretariat to sustain evidence-based scrutiny of the cocaine crisis, public spending, justice, security and essential services while coalition negotiations continue.

NEITHER CORONATION NOR COLLAPSE

There are two easy ways for this project to fail. Smaller parties can deny the CDC’s evident political weight and construct an alliance around ceremonial equality. Or the CDC can mistake its strength for a licence to dictate terms, choose the entire ticket and remember its partners only when votes are needed. Either path will destroy the alliance.

The workable course is a CDC-anchored coalition governed by transparent selection, shared decisions, coordinated legislative candidacies and measurable recognition of every partner’s contribution.

These obligations must carry political consequences without pretending to extinguish powers the Constitution assigns to the President and Senate. That is neither submission nor domination. It is how serious political actors build an alliance strong enough to win, disciplined enough to govern and honest enough to survive victory.