MONROVIA: The European Union Elections Observation Mission to Liberia says Liberia’s “uncompleted electoral reform leads to a legal framework that still suffers from ambiguities, inadequate transparency and insufficient protection of the right to an effective remedy.”
In its preliminary report on the October 10, 2023 Presidential and Legislative elections, the EU ECOM disclosed that overall, the legal framework for the October 2023 general elections provides a relatively adequate basis for the conduct of democratic elections.
“The 1986 Constitution of Liberia guarantees suffrage rights and fundamental freedoms and the 1986 New Elections Law (NEL), as last amended in 2014, provides the basic outline of the electoral process,” the Mission reported.
“However,” according to the international Election Observation Mission, “the Code of Conduct Act, as last amended in 2022, aiming to prevent abuse of public resources by public officials appointed by the president wishing to run for office, by requiring them to resign at least one year prior to election day, cannot be enforced as the office of the Ombudsman mandated to receive and investigate com-plaints as well to impose sanctions, is yet to be instituted.”
EU: “Despite concrete efforts undertaken since 2019 by civil society organizations, the NEC and the legislature to amend the NEL, which led to an electoral amendment bill adopted by both Houses, the electoral reform process was not completed.”
According to the EU Election Observation Mission, “The lack of political will by all stakeholders with a constitutional role in the legislative process represents a missed opportunity for a broad electoral reform that would introduce significant improvements to the legal framework in relation to the electoral dispute resolution, the participation of women and diaspora, the independence of the election administration and the transparency of the process.”
The EU preliminary indicated that the electoral legal framework lacks important procedural details.
Observation Report: “Report For instance, the NEL is silent in regard to the nomination of candidates, which is regulated by the National Elections Commission (NEC) Nomination and Registration Procedures. These procedures substantially restrict the right of voters to challenge the provisional list of candidates. Similarly, the NEC Regulations and Procedures Relating to Political parties, Coalitions, Alliances and Independent Candidates, impose the same financial requirements for registration to contest the elections to political parties and in-dependent candidates alike, thus could significantly limit the latter’s right to stand.”
“Furthermore,” the Report added, “some of the legal provisions related to electoral disputes and electoral offences are characterized by ambiguities and contradictions; moreover, the NEL is not fully in line with international standards in regard to the right to an effective remedy, as voters cannot challenge decisions and actions of the electoral administration or violations of the law, for other parts of the process except for voter registration and election day procedures.”
