Liberians go to the polls next week in the country’s first general elections since civil war was brought to a halt in 2003.
About 1,3-million registered voters — out of a population of 3,5-million — will queue on October 11 to choose a president from 22 candidates.
More than 500 candidates are vying for 64 parliamentary seats, and about 200 for 30 Senate posts.
The presence of about 15 000 United Nations peacekeepers is expected to guarantee a tranquil poll. However, not everyone will be able to take full advantage of the right to vote.
A number of internally displaced persons (IDPs), forced to leave their homes during years of civil strife, will cast ballots for a president but not for legislators in the two houses of Parliament.
Votes for legislators have to be cast in the regions that these officials will represent; but displaced Liberians will not be in their constituencies to do so. IDPs are not counted as members of the districts in which their camps are situated.
According to the National Elections Commission (NEC), about 61 000 internally displaced persons have registered to vote of which just less than a third will still be in the camps they inhabit come polling day.
Last month, exasperated IDPs threatened to burn their voting cards, boycott the poll if not allowed full voting rights and prevent balloting from taking place in IDP camps.
However, the threats were withdrawn last week. Elder George, a spokesperson for 15 IDP camps around Monrovia, said there would be ”no disturbances … during the elections”, noting that the dispute with the NEC was born largely of fears that the plight of displaced persons would be relegated to the back burner after polling.
Yvonne Smith, an elderly woman at the Blamasie IDP camp in western Monrovia, told IPS: ”These people in charge of managing the affairs of this country are not trustworthy.
”They have squandered all the resources given them by the international community to repatriate us.”
The administration of outgoing head of state Gyude Bryant has been mired in charges of corruption, while former president Charles Taylor stands accused of looting millions of dollars from government coffers.
NEC chairperson Frances Johnson-Morris said an IDP boycott would not have been acceptable.
”We can’t have elections and about 24 000 people are saying they are not participating. It’s not going to be good elections,” she said.
”I know that IDPs would be among the first people who would want to vote in this election, to show that the conditions in the country is changed so that we will never have IDPs again.”
Efforts to return the displaced to their homes have been hampered by a lack of funds, and torrential rains that have left Liberia’s dirt roads impassable.
Officials have warned that the unusually wet weather could also prevent other voters from making it to polling stations.
Samuel Kortie, a human rights activist, believes that the partial disenfranchisement of displaced persons may throw a dampener on the poll but that it is the best that can be hoped for under the circumstances.
”Most of Liberia’s international partners will probably accept this as an inevitable consequence of holding elections only two years after the end of a 15-year civil war,” he said.
”What we should get from this current electoral process is a government that more accurately reflects the people’s wishes.” — IPS