Liberia: In Kenya the Americans also praised the elections as free and fair
From years of experience, it has long become obvious that the Western World does not see any Election in Africa that is fraudulent. To each African Election, they have never failed to deploy large contingents of “Election Experts,” but their “Reports” have become so formulaic as to be predictable. All the Western “Election Experts” want to see in order to determine an Election as Free and Fair is a long line of Africans, the better it always is when they are not butchering one another with machetes and pangas. Except, of course, the inevitable winner was Comrade Robert Gabriel Mugabe of the old and venerable ZANU-PF, the vanguard of Chimurenga, or War of National Liberation in the language of the Shona people of Rhodesia which Comrade Mugabe rebranded as Zimbabwe.
Interestingly, the Americans and the West need to be reminded of what the Soviet leader Joseph Stalin once told his Comrades during a heated Central Committee meeting. “Comrades,” the hardened revolutionary said, “it is not those who vote that count, but those who count the votes.” Most especially so in Africa! Yet, the Western World, including the United States and the European Union, are never willing to listen to the anguished cries of the parties who feel cheated, though presenting volumes of convincing evidence in support of their claims.
In Kenya not too long ago, while opposition leader Raila Odinga was crying foul after being cheated in their Election and rushing to the Kenyan Supreme Court, even with boxes of evidence to prove his allegations, the formulaic reports of the European and American Election Observers were already hitting the Airwaves, calling the Presidential Election free and fair and vehemently calling on the aggrieved parties to abandon their quest for justice or their future requests for American Visa would be instantly denied. Raila Odinga called their Reports “Colonial Rubbish.” The Kenyan Supreme agreed and overturned the Presidential Election. The rest of Africa agreed it was the Republic of Kenya’s proudest moment since Uhuru.
The first country to bill Liberia’s fraudulent 1985 Presidential Election as Free and Fair was the United States, even while the overwhelming majority of the Liberian people were still seething with raw anger after being glaringly robbed by Head of State Doe of their hard won right to be ruled by a President elected by the majority of the voters.
Barely a month later, the Liberian people in their overwhelming majority jumped in the Street to celebrate the reported overthrow of the President “they had elected.” It was, of course, that abortive coup of 1985 that served as the prelude to the Liberian Civil War which began in the village of Butuo, Nimba County, on December 24, Christmas Eve, 1989. The war claimed the lives of 300, 000 mostly innocent Liberians and brought Liberia down to her knees.
It seems to be that the Liberians have learned from their bitter experience of 1985, but have the Americans? After the October 10 Presidential Election, Cllr. Brumskine, an American trained lawyer, and Presidential Candidate of the Liberty Party, LP, alleged fraud; George Weah of the CDC, alleged fraud; VP Boakai of the Unity Party, alleged premeditated fraud; the Presidential Candidates of all the major parties, including Cummings and Urey, have alleged fraud. Fortunately, instead of calling upon millions of their members and supporters to take to the Street in search of justice, Cllr. Brumskine, joined and others, took their complaint to the National Election Commission, NEC, in fact, to the same Electoral Body believed to have orchestrated the Fraud against them, because the Law of their country, the Republic of Liberia, so requires. But because the NEC ruled against them without first hearing their case, again they chose to do the right thing by going further to the Supreme Court. Ay man, what else did we expect these law abiding Liberians to do?
One of the wrong things American Ambassadors in Liberia do is that they eventually become personal friends of the Liberian presidents. It has clearly been established that President Sirleaf has been meddling in the Presidential Election in order to ensure the defeat of VP Boakai and the election of Senator Weah. Hence, she strongly disapproves of the diligent effort by the Supreme Court to ensure justice and prevent another mayhem in Liberia which would surely emanate from another electoral conflict.
