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ABSTRACT
Liberia’s 2017 elections represented a watershed moment in the country’s political history. In addition to completing the first democratic transfer of power from one president to another since 1944, it resulted in wide representation across many different parties and independents as well as high levels of legislative turn-overs. Additionally, these polls brought forward unprecedented numbers of party reconfigurations, increased levels of defections, and politicians/parties losing abysmally in presumed ethno-regional bases. In this article, we argue that Liberia currently exists in a post-war arena of “post-party” politics where a profound disregard for parties is the norm, and in which the electorate and politicians alike forum shop for candidates and/or political configurations they presume will deliver the best results at national, sub-national and local levels. Although literature exploring electoral trends in Africa tends to over-emphasize ethno-regionalism as a driver and constraint in the choices of voters and politicians, we demonstrate instead that Liberians make relatively informed, strategic decisions about political alliances and ballot casting thereby subverting allegiances to ethnicity and region. By further eschewing party loyalties, Liberians have gradually become astute forum shoppers in a political marketplace that makes running for office and voting complex undertakings.
Acknowledgments
Both authors contributed equally to the preparation of this article. They would like to thank Professor D. Elwood Dunn for his invaluable guidance on elements of Liberia’s electoral history.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Dunn, “Presidential Power Transfer”; Dunn, Beyan and Burrowes, Historical Dictionary of Liberia, 263–4.
2 All elections statistics are culled from the official website of the National Elections Commission of Liberia (http://www.necliberia.org/).
3 Daily Observer, “Solidarity Statement”; Davis, “Supreme Court Upholds.”
4 National Elections Commission of Liberia, 2017 Presidential and Representative Elections.
5 National Elections Commission of Liberia, 2005 Election Results/By-election Results; National Elections Commission of Liberia, 2011 Presidential and Legislative Elections.
6 Afrofusion, “Liberian Documentary Filmmakers”; Dunn, “Presidential Power Transfer.”
7 Sawyer, Beyond Plunder; Liebenow, Liberia: The Quest for Democracy.
8 Harris, “From ‘Warlord’ to ‘Democratic’ President.”
9 BBC, “Liberia’s Sirleaf Seeks Re-election.”
10 Harris, “Liberia 2005”; Harris and Lewis, “Liberia in 2011.”
11 See Pailey and Harris, “Liberia’s Run-up to 2017”, for more details.
12 Ballah, “Weah, Taylor to Represent CDC.”
13 This means that that the ruling, incumbent party has a change in standard-bearer. See Pailey and Harris, “Liberia’s Run-up to 2017.”
14 Bratton and Kimenyi, “Voting in Kenya”; Long and Gibson, “Evaluating the Roles”; Lindberg, “‘It’s Our Time to “Chop”’”; Lynch, “Electing the ‘Alliance of the Accused’”; Wyrod, “Sierra Leone”; Bwalya and Maharaj, “Not to the Highest Bidder”; LeVan, Page, and Ha, “From Terrorism to Talakawa.”
15 Dalton, “Party Identification,” 1; Bob-Milliar, “Activism of Political Parties,” 10.
16 Hui, “The Crisis of Representativeness”; Levitsky, “Fujimori and Post-party Politics”; Gardels, “The Era of Post-party Politics”; Wilson, Post-party Politics.
17 Momba, “Democratic Transition and the Crises”; Resnick, “Continuity and Change”; Mehler, “Rebels and Parties”; Rutten and Owuor, “Weapons of Mass Destruction.”
18 Afrobarometer, Round 4 Afrobarometer Survey; Afrobarometer, Round 5 Afrobarometer Survey; Afrobarometer, Round 6 Afrobarometer Survey.
19 Brown, “Ideologies of Forum Shopping.”
20 Interview with voter, Monrovia, October 2017.
21 Mozaffar and Scarritt, “The Puzzle,” 399.
22 Doorenspleet, “Political Parties, Party Systems.”
23 Lekalake, “Why Opposition Parties.”
24 Burnell, “The Party System,” 239.
25 Bratton and van de Walle, Democratic Experiments in Africa; Bleck and van de Walle, Electoral Politics in Africa.
26 Crook, “Winning Coalitions,” 215.
27 Burnell, “The Party System”; Sartori, Parties and Party Systems, 195. This is taken from Sartori’s definition which makes a distinction between predominance and hegemony.
28 Bwalya and Maharaj, “Not to the Highest Bidder,” 71.
29 Resnick, “Zambia’s 2016 Elections”; Momba, “Democratic Transition and the Crises.”
30 Sierra Leone has had three opposition victories, but one turnover was delayed for a year by military coups d’état.
31 LeVan, Page, and Ha, “From Terrorism to Talakawa,” 2; Kora and Darboe, “The Gambia’s Electoral Earthquake,” 154–5.
32 Resnick, “Continuity and Change,” 623.
33 Ibid., 625–6, 629.
34 Ibid., 627.
35 Bratton, Bhavnani, and Chen, “Voting Intentions in Africa.”
36 Brubaker and Cooper, “Beyond ‘Identity’”; Berman, “Ethnicity, Patronage and the African State.”
37 Crook, “Access to Justice and Land Disputes”; Benda-Beckmann, “Forum Shopping and Shopping Forums”; Ewert and Weslow, “Forum Shopping in Europe,” 9; Helfer, “Forum Shopping for Human Rights”; Moore, “Forum Shopping in Patent Cases”; Murphy and Kellow, “Forum Shopping in Global Governance.”
38 Ewert and Weslow, “Forum Shopping in Europe,” 9.
39 Brown, “Ideologies of Forum Shopping,” 650; Benda-Beckmann, “Forum Shopping and Shopping Forums.”
40 Sandefeur and Siddiqi, Citizen or Subject?
41 Isser, Lubkemann, and N’Tow, Looking for Justice, 75; Lubkemann, Isser, and Chapman, “Neither State Nor Custom,” 90–1. It is worth noting here, however, that surveys have shown despite their preference for customary jurisprudence, Liberians 59% of the time opt out of using both customary and statutory mechanisms because of their limitations.
42 Whytock, “The Evolving Forum Shopping System,” 489.
43 Pailey, “Birthplace, Bloodline and Beyond,” 821–2.
44 Interviews with voters, Monrovia, October 2017.
45 Interview with Alexander Cummings, Monrovia, August 2016; Interviews with voters, Monrovia, October 2017.
46 Interview with voter, Monrovia, October 2017.
47 Conteh and Harris, “Swings and Roundabouts”; Bob-Milliar and Paller, “Democratic Ruptures and Electoral Outcomes.”
48 For instance, in two polling places within one precinct in Zwedru, Weah totalled 241 and 209 votes, respectively, whereas CDC+ totalled 6 and 1 (observations by author, 10 October 2017).
49 Frontpage Africa, “National Elections Commission Declares.”
50 Dodoo, “Liberia’s Outgoing Ruling Party.”
51 Only 13 of the 38 incumbents who changed political affiliations went on to win a seat in 2017.
52 National Elections Commission of Liberia, 2005 Election Results/By-election Results; National Elections Commission of Liberia, 2011 Presidential and Legislative Elections; National Elections Commission of Liberia, 2017 Presidential & Representative Elections.
53 National Elections Commission of Liberia, 2014 Special Senatorial Election.
54 Author observations and informal conversations, Zwedru, October 2017.
55 Pailey, “Between Rootedness and Rootlessness.”
56 Harris, Civil War and Democracy in West Africa, 194–5; Harmon, “Liberia Gets Top Post”; Sokan, “Grand Gedeh County.”
57 Interview with Zoe Pennue campaign officials, Zwedru, October 2017; Informal conversations, Zwedru, October 2017; Johnson, “ZPMD Identifies”; Tiah, “Grand Gedeh: Zoe Pennue.”
58 Interview with radio journalist, Zwedru, October 2017; Frontpage Africa, “Who Prevails in Zulu Whisky?.”
59 Interview with radio journalist, Zwedru, October 2017.
60 National Elections Commission of Liberia, 2011 Presidential and Legislative Elections.
61 Jalloh, “Liberia Elections.”
62 Brooks, “Jubilation at Liberty Party”; Giahyue, “Bility with Liberty Party.”
63 In another example of forum shopping, Sirleaf is rumoured to have brokered a political alliance between Cummings’ ANC and UP loyalist Jeremiah Sulunteh, former Liberian ambassador to the US, who became the ANC’s vice-presidential candidate.
64 News Public Trust 2017, “Split in Brumskine’s Liberty Party.”
65 Karmo, “From Liberty Party to CDC.”
66 National Elections Commission, 2005 Election Results/By-election Results; National Elections Commission of Liberia, 2011 Presidential and Legislative Elections; National Elections Commission of Liberia, 2014 Special Senatorial Election.
67 Sawyer, Beyond Plunder; Liebenow, Liberia: The Quest for Democracy.
68 Peace Accord Matrix, “Power Sharing Transitional Government.”
69 Lappin, “Bridging the Capabilities–Expectations Gap”; Pailey, “De-centring the ‘White Gaze’ of Development.”
70 Kazeem, “George Weah Is Trying.”
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Robtel Neajai Pailey
Robtel Neajai Pailey is a Liberian academic, activist and author of the forthcoming monograph Development, (Dual) Citizenship and Its Discontents in Africa: The Political Economy of Belonging to Liberia.
David Harris
David Harris is a specialist in African politics, in particular in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Ghana, and author of Sierra Leone: A Political History.