MONROVIA, Montserrado – In the wake of the Supreme Court decision to place a stay order on the November 7 runoff election, the chairman of the National Elections Commission, Jerome Korkoya, has publicly responded to fraud claims made by several political parties.

“There is nothing about election fraud as being alleged by political parties and I do not see any legal basis for a re-run,” Korkoya said.

Touching on claims made by Unity Party, Liberty Party and the All Liberian Party regarding the integrity of the October 10 polls, Korkoya said the commission continues to call on political parties to submit their concerns in the form of complaints and produce the appropriate evidence.

He said one of such claims made by the three political parties was the allegation of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf having a ‘secret’ meeting with election magistrates.

The meeting with Sirleaf simply aimed to highlight the importance of the elections to the citizens and to encourage the magistrates to do a professional job and be independent, Korkoya said.

“NEC disputes such allegations and re-emphasizes that the president has strongly supported the commission in its mandate to hold free, fair and credible elections,” he said.

Korkoya said at no point has NEC’s independence been questioned, pointing out that “the commission is independent and fearlessly defends its independence at all times.”

The chairman encouraged parties to follow the process of filing complaints outlined within the law, appealing to parties to be careful about how they aired grievances in public settings as “announcing unsupported claims in the media risks inflaming and dividing the people of Liberia.”

He stressed that the elections held on October 10 were “free, fair, and credible” and that all national and international election observers have concluded that the process was transparent, with no observer identifying fraud in the process.

However, as has been reported by many observers, and The Bush Chicken, Korkoya admitted that there were lapses at some polling places, which he said the commission acknowledged but that those had no impact on the results of the elections.

He addressed a major claim that ballot papers were dumped in Grand Gedeh, saying that NEC investigation proved that those were not official ballots, but were used for civic education.

“The materials alleged to be ballot papers lacked security features, and it is impossible to be used by someone to vote,” Korkoya said.

He said the claim was a ‘dangerous lie’ and not helpful to the electoral process. He cautioned political parties against presenting false documents “with the intent to undermine the credibility of the commission.”

With the stay order now in place in response to Liberty Party’s request for a writ of prohibition, Korkoya said the process of preparation for the runoff would not be resumed “until the court orders otherwise.”

He surmised that due to the stay order by the Supreme Court, the November 7 date scheduled for the runoff presidential election might not be possible.

According to Korkoya, some election materials had already arrived in Maryland, Grand Kru, River Gee, and Grand Gedeh at the time the stay order was being issued by the Supreme Court.

He said the remaining batch of election materials for Maryland and River Gee was scheduled for shipment on November 1.

“In some instances, election materials that were en route to polling centers were recalled back to the NEC warehouses,” he said.

Training of NEC staff has also been suspended, although training for the magistrates and election supervisors has already concluded.

Featured photo by Zeze Evans Ballah