- Davidetta Browne Lansanah
By Our Editorial Team
MONROVIA: Worldwide, traditional media outlets annually identify, honor or pay glowing tributes to institutions and personalities whose professional works in many spheres have had immense and indelible positive impacts on their nations, humanity, and the global community.
This tradition is observed at the end of every calendar year. However, for The INDEPEENDDENT Newspaper, the crucial 2023 Presidential and Legislative Elections held successfully in Liberia was, to say the least, more than extraordinary for our post-conflict Nation.
It is in line with this sacrosanct media custom that this paper, after critical assessment or evaluation of the ineradicable roles played by various personalities and institutions in the Liberian Nation in the preceding year, 2023, resolved to publicly acknowledged the pivotal, nationalistic, heartwarming, and professional role played by the National Elections Commission (NEC), in the conduct of the 10, October, 2023 Presidential and Legislative elections and the 14, November, 2023 Presidential runoff polls.
Generally, the outcomes of the 2023 elections in Liberia were not only embraced by candidates and other major stakeholders but also applauded by a long chain of respected local and international elections observers including representatives of the United Nations (UN), European Union (EU), Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), African Union (AU), United States and other democratic and peace-loving nations.
As the paper’s editorial team scrupulously x-rayed the critical roles of the various institutions and personalities who helped to sustain the Nation’s hard-won peace and democracy, the sagacious, courageous, unwavering, and professional leadership demonstrated by the NEC’s Chairperson, Madam Davidetta Browne-Lansanah, and her team of Commissioners remains outstanding in sustaining Liberia’s peace and democracy in the year under review.
In the face of multiple challenges that confronted the NEC, Madam Browne-Lansanah, as Head of NEC, did not, in anyway, take her job lightly, leading to generally embracing outcomes of the 2023 polls.
It is predicated upon this development that this paper reserves no iota of hesitation to publicly recognize and honor the NEC Boss, Madam Browne-Lansanah, as its PERSONALITY OF THE YEAR, 2023.
Indeed, her uncompromising and no-nonsense approach in the implementation of her statutory responsibilities relative to the 2023 Presidential and Legislative elections, coupled with her demonstrated sense of commitment to electoral transparency, credibility, integrity and probity, in our candid view, helped, in no small way, in strengthening and consolidating Liberia’s peace and democracy in the preceding year, 2023.
In other words, her dedication to free, fair, transparent, and inclusive electoral process has harnessed the country’s peace and democracy.
Succinctly puts, she implemented an electoral process that favored nobody, as both the ruling party and the nearly 30 opposition political parties were generally regarded as equal electoral stakeholders.
And so, with a flick of her fingers, the confidence and trust in the nation’s electoral system grew admirably.
An army of devotees hangs on her every utterance. She did everything professionally possible to consolidate the country’s peace that spanned over two decades, thus bringing much-needed relief to Liberians at home and in the Diasporas.
Recently, the NEC Boss, Madam Davidetta Browne-Lansanah, in an interview with the West Africa Democracy Radio, revealed the primary source of her dedication and commitment to her job as NEC chairperson.
“Every job I have had from the time I was in the fifth grade working as a field person for CENSUS in Maryland County, I have always taken my job seriously,” Madam Brown-Lansanah informed the media on November 29, 2023.
She disclosed during said interview that her first monthly pay or wage, then, was US$75, and “considering my poor background as an adolescent girl, then, that amount meant a lot for me.”
“And that money was used to buy a bag of rice, oil, milk, farina (gari) and some other food items. So, as a child working for daily-bread, for my home, for my mother and siblings, that was when I really understood that any job that I have, I must put my attention to it,” Madam Brown-Lansanah further told the media.
This is the Liberian woman and activist who aspires to save the Liberian nation and get us a new government that would steer the affairs of the state for the next six years.
Madam Browne-Lansanah, like other previous chairpersons of NEC, such Cllr. Frances Johnson Allison, James Fromayan, Jerome Kokoyah, and others, successfully conducted credible elections in Liberia’s recent history.
Browne-Lansanah has spent nearly half of her adult life, defying her haters. Now it seems she’s finally in the position to put them to shame with her increasing good services to her country, humanity and the larger Liberian Nation. According to one keen observer, “2023 was the year of rebound for Davidetta.”
It may also be recalled that in November, 2023, she won the West African Democracy Radio “African Hero Award” for her outstanding performance during the Liberian Presidential and Legislative elections which were later followed by the crucial Presidential runoff elections, won by former Vice President, Ambassador Joseph Nyuma Boakai, on the ticket of the opposition Unity Party.
Even incumbent President, George Manneh Weah, publicly acknowledged and praised the foresight, credibility and integrity of the NEC Boss, describing the entire outcomes of the polls as free, fair, transparent and credible.
In the words of William Shakespeare, in Julius Caesar, “it is far easier to be remembered for doing evil than doing good. But many people are described as larger than life, but few deserve it.”
Indeed, the NEC Chairperson, Madam Davidetta Browne-Lansanah, may not be larger than life but, she deserves and merits this recognition accorded her by The INDEPENDENT Newspaper as its PERSONALITY OF THE YEAR 2023.
A few years ago, Madam Browne-Lansanah was roundly mocked unduly by her critics as an unfit public servant who they claimed then, was on the verge of plunging the country into chaos if she remained as Head of the NEC.
However, these unwarranted criticisms, in many ways, reinforced the resolve of Madam Browne-Lansanah, who hails from Maryland County, and escaped a brutal childhood and overcame personal tragedies, to firmly bend the nation and its politicians to the force of her vision of hard-work, fairness, integrity, and credibility amid any tumultuous logistical and other tedious challenges.
To Browne-Lansanah, her vast fortune is a mere side effect of her ability not just to see but to do things others cannot do in the best interest of all, and in areas where the stakes are existentially high.
Despite the initial slow funding to the Commission to conduct these elections for over 1000 candidates, “She conducted the 2023 elections in a fair, transparent and proactive manner,” says Sampson Doe, a student of Political Science at the state-owned University of Liberia.
“Her style of managing expectations is one to remember. She instills firmness and discipline and high level of professionalism into her subordinates and works assiduously with her fellow commissioners as a Team Captain despite the limited resources, which the Commission had to its disposal, coupled with bad road network in rural Liberia,” student Doe averred.
Such cosmic achievement rarely comes without consequences, and Browne-Lansanah, just as other good leaders, before her, are still being pressured by some politicians, for their own pecuniary gains, to be answerable them.
Such politicians tried without success to undermine the NEC credibility by crying fouls, claiming unsubstantiated votes rigging during the 2023 polls.
Based on her high-level performance and dedication to duty, Madam Davidetta Browne-Lansanah is our ‘Personality of the Year 2023,’ our usher to the remade Liberia, where ugly practices are cast aside and the unprecedented becomes logical, where the nation and its people can still be saved,” said The INDEPENDENT Newspaper’s Publisher, Sam O. Dean.
Madam Browne-Lansanah was appointed on 10th April, 2020 by President George Manneh Weah.
Earlier, she was nominated and appointed as Co-chair in 2020 following her confirmation by the Liberian Senate.
Professionally, Mrs. Lansanah holds double Bachelor Degrees in Public Administration and Political Science respectively, from the University of Liberia, and a Masters of Public Administration Degree in Public Sector Management from the Cuttington University Graduate School.
Another aspect about Madam Browne-Lansanah is that she is a veteran Broadcast Journalist who worked for many years in the field at the State-Owned, Liberia Broadcasting System (LBS), Dutch-funded Star Radio, and the Talking Drum Studio (Search for Common Ground), a peace building project.
