Liberia is in the Guinness Book of World Records for conducting the most fraudulent and rigged elections in modern recorded human history, and the 2017 elections could be a repeat of that history.

In the 1927 presidential elections pitting Charles DB King against one Mr. JR Faulkner, there were 15,000 registered voters of Americo-Liberian stock only as natives who constituted 95 percent of the population were denied the right to vote until around 1960, even when natives were, again denied their right to form opposition political parties.

So in 1927, Mr. King, the government said, got 234,000 votes out of the 15,000 registered voters.

In the 2017 elections, the National Elections Commission said there were 2,183,683 registered voters. But the NEC refused to make public the final Voter Registration Roster to be vetted.

Then NEC Chairman Jerome Korkoryah announced that anyone with a voter registration card--whether that person is formally registered to vote or not --will be allowed to vote regardless.

Korkoryah's decree followed after an aide in President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, "Presidential Deliverables' Hon. Amos Seibo," was busted and arrested by Police in February in his home he had converted into a virtual NEC Printing Press as he and others were busy at full speed manufacturing illegal voters registration cards.

How was Mr. Seibo able to get hold of NEC computers, cameras, printers, voter registration forms and other NEC materials is the Mother of All Questions the NEC must answer. Yet, Chairman Korkoryah says the fraud and vote-rigging claims by LP, UP, ALP and ANC are "politically motivated?" Really, Lawyer Jerome Korkoryah?

If the fraud allegations are proven, Korkoryah and his partners-in-crime could face prosecution because their actions are tantamount to treason and sedition that could send to them to jail for many tears, a deterrent mechanism for future elections. 

And the other flip side to the coin is: what was President Sirleaf's role in this scheme and the coverup? What did the president know and when did she know it, a Richard Nixon-like refrain?

When a president invites Elections Magistrates and some NEC Commissioners to her private residence in the middle of the night to tell them she is " interested in the outcome of the elections," then where there is smoke, fire is bound to be lurking underneath. 

The president's interest in the outcome is not different from every Liberian's interest that there must be free, fair and transparent elections and outcome. Why didn’t she go to NEC headquarters to meet with the NEC people and all-party leaders/candidates?

Therefore, those who are concerned about the election "timeframe" and expediency for Ellen to "retire on time" instead of getting to the bottom of the fraud and vote-rigging allegations should know that we are not going to satisfy their egotistical desires at the expense of the fundamental and constitutional rights of all the citizens who were denied their right to vote. Due process of law trumps over expediency.

This is 2017 and not 1927. So let jail await the crooks who want us to keep doing the same thing for which Liberia for 170 years bears the dishonorable label of a "failed state." We want to turn the page. Enough is enough.

Jerry Wehtee Wion, Journalist and Political Commentator, Washington, DC, USA

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